Stroll "not going anywhere" from Williams, says father

Williams has endured a troubled start to the season, with Stroll's eighth place in Baku the only points-scoring finish of the campaign so far, and no sign of form improving on a consistent basis.

However, Stroll Sr claims that he has not reached the stage where he would start to look for an alternative home for his son for future seasons.

"We're not there yet," he told Motorsport.com after the Spanish Grand Prix. "I believe in Williams, I believe in the team. Clearly they got it wrong so far.

"I do believe this is a rude awakening, and hopefully it will bring the best out of the people, and they'll fix it. I'm sure not as quick as we'd like, and not as quick as they'd like either.

"But we're not going anywhere else.

"Obviously the car clearly isn't where we hoped and wanted to be, it's quite a way off. We struggled when we came here for testing, and we're still struggling. So it's pretty apparent to the eye what's wrong with the car.

"I gather everyone is trying their best, there's a great sense of urgency in the team. It's not that they don't recognise the problem, everybody does. A blind person could see the problem. I know they're working hard to fix it."

Stroll Sr is understood to have been pushing for the team to take more technology from Mercedes in the future – Force India has used a Brackley-supplied gearbox for some years – but he played down the extent of his influence.

"I'm not a board member, I don't own one share of this team, I'm simply Lance's father. Whatever they can do to make the car go better, I'm in favour of, let's put it that way."

He said that it had been a good season for Lance personally, as the 19-year-old has finished all five races and consistently made up ground during race starts, while successfully avoiding incidents.

"I think his performance, based on the car he has, has been phenomenal. This was his fifth great race. He can't qualify the car much better than where he qualifies it, but he does amazingly well on that opening lap.

"I think he's beaten his teammate all five times, and beaten a lot of people that the car is not capable of beating. So from a performance point of view with Lance, we couldn't be happier.

"Obviously we'd like a better car to be at the front of the grid! But with the equipment he has, I don't think he could be doing a better job."