Formula 1
Lance Stroll brushes off home F1 race pressure while Montreal benefits from 'Stroll factor'
Williams rookie Lance Stroll is unaffected by the pressure surrounding his debut Formula 1 race in Canada even as the promoter claims his entry ha...
Published: Jun 7, 2017, 3:58 PM
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Williams rookie Lance Stroll is unaffected by the pressure surrounding his debut Formula 1 race in Canada even as the promoter claims his entry has increased ticket sales.
Sunday's race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve will be the first to have a home entry since the 2006 iteration in which Jacques Villeneuve qualified 11th and crashed out on lap 11.
"You have to embrace it." said Stroll to JA on F1 during Williams' 40th Anniversary event at Silverstone.
"It's going to be great being in Montreal in front of home fans, friends, family and just being home will be nice.
“It’s kind of old-school. The crowd is closer to the track there, the grandstands aren’t huge, and the runoff isn’t massive, but I love that and I think it shouldn’t change. I think that’s what makes it really cool,” Stroll said to the Globe and Mail.
"The city is buzzing, it’s one of the best weekends in Montreal of the year."
The 18-year-old Montreal-born driver has, according to the Montreal Gazette, played a part in spurring growth of up to 15% in ticket sales for the event, which is also celebrating the 50th anniversary of F1 in Canada.
The event's promoter François Dumontier dubbed the increase 'the Stroll factor' ('l’effet Stroll'), but after a difficult start to the season in which the rookie has failed to finish four times without scoring a point, the Williams driver maintains that he is focused solely on his own performance going forward.
"It's great that there's a lot of attraction to the sport and fans come out to races, but you have to stay focused in what you've got to do and you can't get distracted by it.
"You've got to stay in your bubble throughout the weekend and do what you [have to] do.
"I think for all the drivers when you arrive at this level it's just outside noise."
Stroll is unfazed by his results this season, including the collision between him and Toro Rosso's Carlos Sainz Jr in Bahrain (for which Sainz was penalised) and his 16th place finish in Spain, claiming his Formula 3 and Formula 4 results prove he's up to the task.
"I think more than anything - I don't want to sound cocky but in a positive way - I don't doubt my capabilities as a racing driver.
"I've proved that to myself in the past and in my Formula 4 and Formula 3 championships and I still don't doubt myself even though it's been a tricky start to the year."
Stroll won the F3 Euro competition in 2016 with 14 wins out of 30 races and became the F4 Italy champion in 2014 with Italian outfit Prema Powerteam.
"But what I do know and I do have to accept is that Formula 1 is very different from any other championship," he continued to JA on F1.
"I think the tyres are very tricky to understand. We see that this year, the compound is a lot harder to get in the working window than even last year's compound – that for me is tricky.
"The cars here are heavy, they're snappy, they move around a lot.
"It's good, its challenging, I enjoy it a lot but it's a challenge and we see it with a lot of drivers; they're definitely harder to drive."
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