By Holly Wright
There are few driver-team relationships in Formula 1 quite like Lance Stroll and Aston Martin.
When the Canadian lines up on the grid in 2027, he will begin his ninth season with the company that started life as Racing Point before becoming Aston Martin.
Stroll will once again share the garage with Fernando Alonso, extending a partnership that has now lasted several seasons.
It also means another year of continuity for a driver who has already spent almost a decade in Formula 1 but there is one question that has followed Stroll throughout his career and, with another contract extension now in place, it is unlikely to disappear anytime soon.
Would Lance Stroll still have a place in Formula 1 if his father, Lawrence Stroll, did not own Aston Martin?
It is a fair question, but there is no straightforward answer.
Stroll has undoubtedly benefited from his family’s wealth and his father’s position within Aston Martin.
At the same time, writing him off as nothing more than a billionaire’s son ignores what he achieved before reaching Formula 1 and some of the performances he has produced since.
That is what makes his situation so interesting. After almost a decade in F1, has Stroll done enough on track to justify the faith Aston Martin continues to show in him?
The One Advantage Stroll Can Never Escape
Stroll’s route into Formula 1 has always been viewed through the financial power of his family.
His father, Lawrence, is a billionaire businessman who became involved in the ownership of the Racing Point operation before it was transformed into Aston Martin.
That connection has given Lance something most drivers on the grid simply do not have. Since 2019, he has been driving for an organisation ultimately owned by his father which is an obvious advantage.
For most drivers, keeping a seat in Formula 1 means proving themselves every season. Results matter, as do relationships with team bosses, sponsorship, and the availability of seats elsewhere.
Stroll has had a level of security that few of his rivals can realistically match.
That becomes even more noticeable when his record is compared with the driver on the other side of the Aston Martin garage.
Stroll has been teammates with Fernando Alonso since 2023 and, for the most part, the two-time world champion has had the upper hand.
In 2023, Alonso scored 198 points compared with Stroll’s 74, while he also finished ahead of his teammate in the vast majority of comparable races.
The gap remained significant in 2024, with Alonso again finishing comfortably ahead in the championship.
The same pattern continued in 2025, with Alonso once again producing the stronger campaign.
Those comparisons naturally fuel the debate around Stroll.
It is one thing to point to flashes of speed and argue that he deserves his place in F1; It is another to explain why he should continue to occupy one of Aston Martin’s two seats when a two-time world champion has consistently extracted more from the same machinery.
Can Stroll’s Success Be Put Down to Money?
This is where the argument becomes less straightforward.
Stroll was not an unknown driver who suddenly arrived in Formula 1 simply because of his father’s bank balance.
Before making it to F1, he had already built a strong junior record and shown genuine pace.
His 2016 European Formula 3 campaign was particularly impressive. Stroll won the championship with 14 victories and 14 pole positions, giving Williams a genuine sporting reason to take notice when it came to deciding its 2017 line-up.
His first season in Formula 1 also produced enough evidence to suggest there was more to his ability than simply having the right connections.
Stroll scored 40 points as a rookie and finished 12th in the championship. More importantly, he stood on the podium at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
At the time, that made him the youngest rookie to finish on an F1 podium.
His 2020 season provided another reminder of what he could do on the right weekend.
Stroll claimed his first pole position at the Turkish Grand Prix and added two more podium finishes, eventually ending the campaign 11th in the championship with 75 points.
None of that proves that Stroll would have reached Formula 1 without his family’s wealth it does, however, show that once he got there, he was capable of producing results that could not simply be explained away by his surname and that distinction matters.
The Numbers That Keep the Debate Alive
The strongest criticism of Stroll is not that he has never been quick.
It is that he has never been able to turn those flashes into the kind of consistency expected from an established F1 driver.
Stroll has three podium finishes and one pole position to his name, but no race victories. His best championship finish remains 10th, which came in 2023.
There have been some excellent weekends. There have been impressive qualifying performances and races where Stroll has shown exactly why he has remained on the grid.
The problem is that those performances have not arrived often enough which has made the 2026 season another difficult one for the Canadian.
Aston Martin itself has struggled for competitiveness as the team continues its long-term transformation under Adrian Newey and prepares for its Honda works partnership under the next generation of Formula 1 regulations.
That needs to be considered when assessing Stroll’s results as it would be unfair to put Aston Martin’s struggles entirely on one driver.
The AMR26 has not consistently provided either Stroll or Alonso with a car capable of fighting at the front, while the team is clearly working towards a bigger project beyond its current position but that does not completely remove the questions around Stroll either.
When opportunities have presented themselves, he has still struggled to consistently match Alonso and that is where the debate becomes difficult to ignore.
The Question Aston Martin Cannot Escape
The reality is that nobody outside Aston Martin can know exactly how much weight is given to performance, continuity,and other factors when the team makes its driver decisions.
What we do know is that Lawrence Stroll owns the team, Lance has been one of its drivers since the Racing Point era, and Aston Martin has continued to retain him.
That connection will inevitably attract scrutiny.
It would be unrealistic to suggest otherwise.
At the same time, reducing Stroll to nothing more than a billionaire’s son with a guaranteed racing seat would ignore too much of the evidence.
He won championships in junior racing. He scored a podium during his rookie F1 season. He took pole position in 2020 and added two more podium finishes that year.
There have been plenty of moments when Stroll has shown that he has the speed required to compete in Formula 1; the issue is consistency.
After almost a decade on the grid, Stroll is no longer an inexperienced youngster learning his trade.
The expectation now is that he should be able to turn those occasional performances into something more regular. That is why his continued Aston Martin career remains such an interesting talking point.
The team is trying to build itself into a genuine championship contender, with major investment, new technical leadership,and a works Honda partnership on the horizon.
Keeping Alonso provides experience and a proven record at the highest level however renewing Stroll’s contract means continuing with a driver whose performances have not consistently matched those of his teammate, but who has also shown enough ability to suggest there is more to the story than simply his family connections.
Perhaps Aston Martin believes Stroll can find another level once the team has a car capable of fighting regularly at the front.
Having the same driver line-up provides valuable stability while the organisation continues its transformation and inevitably, Lawrence Stroll’s position within Aston Martin means Lance’s situation will always be different from that of almost every other driver on the grid.
The evidence does not support the idea that Stroll has never demonstrated genuine Formula 1 ability but equally, his family connections have given him opportunities and security that most drivers could only dream of.
That is what makes Lance Stroll such a fascinating case.
His surname may have helped open the door to Formula 1. After almost a decade, the question is whether what he has done on track has been enough to keep it open.
