Lance Stroll is “very underrated” and “as fast as” two-time champion Fernando Alonso, according to Aston Martin ambassador Pedro de la Rosa, despite the Canadian’s four-year obliteration at the hands of his senior teammate.
Alonso has a formidable record against Stroll so far this season, outqualifying the 27-year-old 10-2 and by an average of 0.333s, in both cases the biggest margins between any two teammates on the grid.
This followed Stroll being embarrassingly being whitewashed by Alonso in qualifying last season, when he was smashed 23-0 for one-lap performance.
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De la Rosa, however, insisted to F1 podcast Beyond the Grid that Stroll is undervalued as a grand prix talent.
“Lance is super fast,” said the one-time F1 podium-getter. “I love to watch data because I’m data-driven, and I like to see where one driver is faster than the other, and Lance, in many circuits, in many corners, is unbeatable.
“It’s not like you can say Lance is fast in high-speed, Fernando in [somewhere else]. They’re both very evenly matched.
“I think Lance is a very underrated driver.”
Stroll is in his 10th campaign in the sport, eight of which he has spent with Aston Martin, including in its previous guise as Racing Point. He is widely believed to have a job for life at the British team, which is owned by his billionaire father, Lawrence Stroll.
Stroll Jr has 203 starts, putting him 24th on the list of all-time entries. He has accrued one pole position and three third-place finishes in his time, though he has scored none of either since 2020.
Alonso, a two-time champion, is the most experienced driver in Formula 1, with 439 starts to his name across 23 campaigns featuring 32 victories and 22 pole positions. Eight of his 106 career podiums have been scored during his 3.5 years as Stroll’s teammate.
The two have been teammates since 2023, and Alonso has consistently and comprehensively beaten Stroll in every season since then.
Lance Stroll vs. Fernando Alonso, 2023 to date
Qualifying head to head: Alonso leads 71-10 (87.7-12.3 per cent)
Time differential: Alonso faster by 0.403s
Race head to head: Alonso leads 45-11 (80.4-19.6 per cent)
Points: Alonso ahead 335-131 (71.9-28.1 per cent)
Their 2023 season was the most one-sided, with Alonso scoring eight podium finishes, including a trio of second places, while Stroll recorded a single best finish of fourth.
That season saw the largest points gap between them of any campaign together, with Alonso outscoring Stroll 206-74, with the Canadian finishing inside the top 10 12 times from 22 rounds.
Though the margins have tightened since, Stroll and Alonso have been consistently among the most distantly matched teammates on the grid.
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De la Rosa conceded that Stroll was too inconsistent to make the most of his apparently Alonso-level speed, though he said Aston Martin’s difficult 2026 car was partly to blame.
“Lance is extremely quick in all types of corners, it’s just that sometimes he’s had some mistakes in qualifying or little things that then eventually, if you don’t qualify up there, it just compromises the whole weekend.
“That’s where he’s missing. It’s just sometimes putting everything together in quali.
“But sometimes he gets it in quali and he outqualifies Fernando, which is like — I mean, we’re talking about Fernando Alonso, you know.
“And in races, his race pace is impressive as well. He’s very good managing tyres.
“When we improve the car and make it a bit more driver-friendly … whenever the car is driving properly, he’s as quick as Fernando. There’s no question about that.”
“Tell me if you’re going to fix it!” | 00:48
MERCEDES EQUALS LONGSTANDING FERRARI RECORD AFTER SPAIN WIN
Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s victory in Madrid was the 251st win for Mercedes as an engine manufacturer, equalling a record held by Ferrari for more than two decades.
Ferrari is Formula 1’s longest serving manufacturer and engine builder, having contested every season of the world championship. It’s also the sport’s most successful team, having won more races and titles than any other team.
Enzo Ferrari, the founder of his eponymous team, famously considered his power plants to be the cornerstone of his success, having once espoused that aerodynamics is for those who can’t build engines.
He was also historically influential in shaping the Formula 1 regulations around engines, most notably in the decision in the late 1980s to shift the sport away from smaller turbocharged engines and back to naturally aspirated ones, signalling the short-lived return of the Ferrari V12 to grand prix racing.
Ford Cosworth had taken the record for victories in the interim, moving ahead of Ferrari in 1972 — painfully, at the Italian Grand Prix — thanks to its model as a supplier rather than a works constructor.
It wasn’t until Ferrari developed its V10 engine that it started racking up victories, with the changed configuration coinciding with the arrival of Michael Schumacher in the mid-1990s. By the early 2000s the team was winning races for fun, and at the 2004 French Grand Prix it surpassed Ford for the most victories by an engine builder, with 176 wins.
It has gradually extended that record ever since, with Charles Leclerc’s win at the British Grand Prix the 251st for the Italian marque.
Mercedes, however, has equalled that record with remarkable speed.
Its first nine victories came in the 1950s, in the early days of the world championship, but it didn’t win its 10th until 1997, after entering a works partnership with McLaren.
When Ferrari took the record in 2004, the brand had only 42 victories. They ended that season with 182-43 in Ferrari’s favour.
In the 432 races since then, Mercedes engines have won an astounding 208 times, or 48.2 per cent of all events. Ferrari has won just 69 times or 16.0 per cent of races.
Mercedes has been aided by having competitive customer teams. McLaren has contributed 102 victories to Mercedes’s total, with Brawn — which was later bought by Mercedes — adding eight to the tally.
Only one Ferrari customer has ever won a race: Toro Rosso, now known as Racing Bulls, which won the 2008 Italian Grand Prix with Sebastian Vettel.
Engine performance is a major battleground in 2026, with Ferrari’s lack of deployment in particular leaving it on the back foot in the battle with Mercedes, which by consensus has developed the best hybrid power unit this season.
Ferrari has used both upgrade concession for the season; Mercedes will deploy its singular upgrade chance likely in October.
Lando refuses to ditch the Coca-Cola! | 00:17
FORMULA 2 DOUBLES UP ON BAKU RACES AS F1 CALENDAR CALL LOOMS
Formula 2 will add an extra race to its schedule at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in what is being widely interpreted as a move to compensate for the likely loss of rounds in Qatar and Abu Dhabi later this season.
F2 organisers insist, however, that the Middle Eastern rounds will go ahead as scheduled.
Just three rounds remain in this year’s Formula 2 season, with appearances on the F1 undercard in Qatar and Abu Dhabi following next week’s race in Baku.
But the Qatar and Abu Dhabi grands prix are in doubt due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
The F2 championship is poised to go down to the wire, with Red Bull junior Nikola Tsolov leading Ferrari protégé Rafael Câmara by just seven points. Alpine juniors Gabriele Mini and Alex Dunne trail by 24 points and 38 points respectively.
The sudden cancellation of the final rounds could all but eliminate Mini and Dunne from contention effectively via press release while also robbing Tsolov and Câmara of chances to battle for the title.
Adding an extra feature race to the Baku weekend is therefore being read as a way to bolster the points available for the season.
F2 CEO Bruno Michel insisted, however, say the decision was driven purely by a desire to serve fans.
“As Formula 2 is the only support event at the Azerbaijan Formula 1 Grand Prix, together with the promoters, we have opted for a super-sized F2 race weekend, with one free practice, two qualifying sessions, one sprint race and two feature races,” he said.
“This is the only weekend where the timetable allows the additional sessions, which will increase the level of entertainment even further for the attending crowd and all our fans. The Baku City Circuit always provides us with amazing racing, so we’re very pleased to make the 12th Round of our season pretty unique.”
F2 added in a statement that “the final two rounds of the season in Qatar and Abu Dhabi will resume with the usual weekend format”.
The title reality for Formula 2 could sharpen minds in Formula 1 headquarters too, with Andrea Kimi Antonelli skipping out to an 81-point lead after victory in Spain.
At his current score rate relative to George Russell, he could be on track to wrap up the title as soon as the United States Grand Prix, four rounds from now, assuming the Middle Eastern rounds are cancelled.
However, if he were to enjoy one or two more big points swings over Russell in the next two races, his coronation date could be brought sooner — which in turn raises the possibility that a late cancellation of the final two rounds could hand the Italian the title between events.
Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali had previously earmarked a decision on cancelling the two races in the middle of September owing to logistical considerations.
The World Endurance Championship has already abandoned season-closing rounds in Qatar and Bahrain, while MotoGP is expected to announce imminently that it will also cancel its Qatar Grand Prix, due in November.
If the races are cancelled, Formula 1 is expected to replace them with a final race in Imola, in central Italy, on 6 December. It has already scheduled an additional race in Malaysia next month to bolster the calendar.