Lance Stroll should depart the Aston Martin Formula 1 team and form ties with a new outfit if he wants to untap his potential, according to 1996 World Champion Damon Hill.
Stroll joined Aston Martin in 2019 when it ran under the Racing Point guise, with father Lawrence taking control of the squad.
The Canadian driver, who has three career podiums to his name, is likely to be heavily protected at the team with his seat in little danger given the family ties.
This year, Stroll has been joined at Aston Martin by Fernando Alonso, who has taken three podiums in as many races to start the 2023 campaign.
Hill says that Stroll must look to be ambitious and seek to “end” Alonso’s F1 career in order to stand out.
“It [his form] has to be maintained, sustained over time – it’s no good, just a blip, a one-off event,” Hill said on the F1 Nation podcast.
“So he’d have to make it his ambition this year. He’d have to set his goal as ending Fernando Alonso’s career. Now that sounds brutal, but that’s what George Russell is trying to do [against Lewis Hamilton].
“That’s what Nico Hulkenberg is trying to do with [Kevin] Magnussen – you have to establish yourself as the undisputed king, number one in that team.”
Hill says that Stroll currently doesn’t possess the abilities of a World Champion – but says he could find more potential if he joins another team.
“I think the more interesting question for me is what is someone’s ultimate potential? I think Lance has got the natural ability.
“I don’t think, as he stands today, he is a future world champion stand-alone on his own merits, in the same way that Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton are.
“He’d be knocking spots off Fernando Alonso if he was that person. If you want to go to the next level, then that’s what you’ve got to start doing.
“Speaking from my own experience, I had other levels that I had no concept of until I really was forced into those situations and had to deliver, and I know that there’s more potential in every driver than they realise.
“The question is how do you untap that potential, it takes an awful lot of commitment and an awful lot of sacrifice.
“If he really wants to know the answer, then he’d have to go and drive for a different team. Then he’d escape all those issues, and he’d have to sink or swim.”
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