Stroll’s confidence intact after “little issue”

2017 F1 season

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Lance Stroll says he remains confident despite a pair of costly incidents during his first test as a Williams driver.

The 18-year-old damaged his car on Tuesday and Wednesday, leaving the team unable to run on Thursday. However he described his 98-lap run on Wednesday, which ended with a crash as a “good day”.

“Everyone is quite positive, it was a good day,” said Stroll. “Unfortunate what happened at the end but it’s a little issue and sometimes things like that happens, you’ve just got to move forward from it.”

Testing day four in pictures
“It is what it is and just got to make the best of it with the rest of the test going on.”

Stroll said he was “a victim of a situation that happened on the end on the car, which just threw the car away from me”. Williams chief performance engineer Rob Smedley said the crash was related to tyre behaviour.

He denied the two accidents had affected his confidence ahead of his debut as an F1 driver.

“I did what I had to do to get here,” said Stroll. “I won championships I needed to get to get here, got my superlicence, got my points for my superlicence, got what’s necessary to be here so I’m here doing my thing. So I feel ready.”

Stroll will have two more days in the FW40 before starting his first race as a grand prix driver.

“I’m going to be approaching next week even better than this week,” he said. “I have time in the car now, at least.”

“I actually got to break the ice today. I did 100 laps, so that was really good. I did all kind of laps, long runs, short runs, medium tyre, soft tyre, I was really happy about that. That’s really positive about next week.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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14 comments on “Stroll’s confidence intact after “little issue””

  1. Yup that’s what an F1 driver should sound like. Good stuff LS.

  2. He is right and wrong simultaneously. His confidence must be intact because after all is testing but this was not a “little issue” for the team that lost precious testing time on track and by saying this i was expecting a word like “unfortunately i had put extra work for the team because of this” or something like “the time we lost on the track i hope that will not affect our test schedulle too much”. I dont want to categorize him to the arrogant guys and i will give him time for sure.

  3. JCB ad placement is looking very appropriate given that this Williams seems to need a crane rather often

  4. Awww… and here I was expecting him to say that his confidence was shaken, and that he’ll be driving slower for awhile.

  5. As long as Daddy Laurence Stroll’s billion-dollar portfolio is intact, that’s what matters.

  6. Need to work with that confidence – he should be shaked after fuc5ing Williams test up twice…

    He’s most importent object was to test the car – not ruining the test and the car…

    P.s.: Dear farther please send more money…

  7. This “little issue” already cost Williams 1.5 days of testing, 2 badly damaged cars and a private jet flight. If this continues he will have spent dad’s investment before the summer vacation!

  8. Well, it shouldn’t be, though. Especially considering Giovanazzi’s performance today…

    1. Exactly @dennis look what Giovanazzi has done in the Sauber a worst car this guy can barely keep it on track. I hope he does not injure someone or even worst, i see a Liuzzi type situation at the start in Melbourne happening way he is driving and the cars are much wider, what happens if he does injure somone it will be a joke.

  9. The guy driving the Sauber should be given the Willams drive or atleast let Di Resta, it is Willams own fault they are well behind the 8 ball now with this missed running.

  10. He’s gonna be strolled by Massa.

  11. Glad Stroll’s confidence is intact. I’m also sure that Massa’s confidence has taken a massive boost as he’ll finally be trouncing over a teammate after a really long time.

  12. definitely i’ll remain confident if my dad is rich and generous.

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