Aston Martin Formula 1 ambassador Pedro de la Rosa has heaped praise on Lance Stroll, claiming the Canadian can be “as quick” as his team-mate Fernando Alonso.
Alonso and Stroll have been team-mates since 2023, and over that period, the 27-year-old has been outqualified 89-15 and outscored 335 points to 131.
Even as Alonso has grown older and Stroll has gained even more experience, the comparison between them has remained similar, with the 45-year-old three tenths faster in qualifying on average in 2026.
Yet, when asked about Stroll in the Beyond The Grid podcast, de la Rosa was laudatory.
“Lance is super fast,” the former F1 driver said. “You know, 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... They're both very evenly matched.
“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, you know, 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.”
But there’s an ‘if’, and not an insignificant one. De la Rosa does clarify that Stroll requires the car to perform as expected in order to match his team-mate.
“I think Lance is a very underrated driver,” he continued. “When we improve the car and make it a bit more driver-friendly – I must say it's a very difficult car right now for many reasons, not only car, chassis, but also on the engine, we have to make improvements on driveability – whenever the car is driving properly, he's as quick as Fernando. There's no question about that.”
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