Racing Point says that Lance Stroll was never at risk of losing his Formula 1 seat amid the protracted saga involving Sergio Perez and Sebastian Vettel.
Racing Point targeted Vettel as a prospect for 2021 in the wake of the four-time World Champion not being offered a contract by Ferrari beyond the end of 2020.
Perez signed a three-year deal with Racing Point in 2019 and had expected to stay on but was informed on Wednesday that his services were no longer required.
On Thursday Racing Point confirmed that Vettel will join in 2021, when the squad is rebranded as Aston Martin, alongside Stroll.
Stroll is the son of Racing Point owner Lawrence but has enjoyed a strong 2020 campaign, holding fourth in the standings, and mounted the podium at the most recent round at Monza.
“Lance has been with us for a couple of years,” said team boss Otmar Szafnauer.
“He’s a young man at 21 years old and yeah, his father does own the team, so when he look to make a driver change, because Sebastian became available, it would have been Checo [who left].
“Like I said before, there are options in his [Checo’s] contract and those options didn’t exist for Lance.”
Vettel has had a subdued couple of seasons with Ferrari but Szafnauer is convinced that the 53-time race winner can be revitalised at Aston Martin.
“He’s 33 years old, he’s still in the prime of his career, he’s got a vast amount of experience, he’s still highly motivated to do well,” he said.
“He works really hard and we believe with our team and what we want to take it to and the level that we want to get to Seb’s a perfect fit for that and I’m confident that he’ll race well.
“We’ve always allowed our drivers to race each other and that’ll be the same in the future.”
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