As part of a daily series in the run-up to the start of pre-season, Motorsport Week brings you brief left-field reflections and stories of teams, drivers and reserve/test drivers that will be part of the Formula 1 paddock in 2019.
Lance Stroll will compete for Racing Point this year having spent two seasons with Williams, before which he was a long-term Ferrari junior. And he’s still only 20.
Ferrari founded its Driver Academy at the end of 2009 after recognising that it did not have a suitable replacement when Felipe Massa suffered his serious injury in Hungary. It has since guided the late Jules Bianchi and Charles Leclerc into Formula 1, but one of its first signings was Stroll – who was only 11 when he joined the scheme in 2010.
The baby-faced Stroll gleefully sat in the cockpit of Ferrari’s Formula 1 car for publicity photos as the then-karter attracted widespread attention for being signed to a historic marque at such a young age. Critics also pointed to his father’s wealth – not for the last time…
“If you look at the recent past, so many champions, from Michael Schumacher to Jenson Button, Lewis Hamilton to Fernando Alonso, started their professional career in karts at this age: if one wants to become a Formula 1 driver, this is the path to take,” said Stroll at the time.
Stroll continued to compete in karting, with Ferrari backing, and stepped up to single-seaters in 2014, taking the Italian Formula 4 title, before moving into European Formula 3.
Stroll severed his Ferrari link at the end of 2015 but within a year he had secured the European Formula 3 title that ultimately earned him a shot with Williams.
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