Fernando Alonso hopes that Lance Stroll, his Aston Martin teammate, will be granted a competitive car in Formula One to “change the opinion of many people”.
Aston Martin has had a nightmare since the summer break, with additional misfiring innovations causing the AMR24 to regress to one of the slowest vehicles.
However, while Alonso has managed to accumulate 12 points during that time, Stroll has not increased to his score since July and has plummeted to 13th in the Drivers’ Championship.
Stroll was watched again in Brazil after a peculiar incident on the formation lap left him beached in the gravel while attempting to recover from a spin at Turn 4.
The Canadian’s blunder sparked widespread criticism, with ex-Haas manager Guenther Steiner claiming Stroll would not be driving in F1 if his father, Lawrence, did not control the company.
However, Alonso believes the censure is unjustified, claiming that Stroll has been unfortunate to be surrounded by uncompetitive vehicles throughout his career.
“I think the public eye will always be harder than it should be,” Alonso told reporters at Motorsport Week in Las Vegas. “This is the world we live in.”
“He won every single category before joining Formula One.
“He had some good and awful Formula One performances, just like everyone else.
“The unfortunate thing for him is that he raced in uncompetitive cars for 90% of his career, which I believe is awful for any driver.
“We’ve seen numerous cases in the past where if you don’t have a competitive car, you’ll be out of Formula One quickly.
“An example is Stoffel [Vandoorne], our reserve driver here. A extremely gifted driver won Formula 3, Formula 2, and everything in karting.
“If you have an uncompetitive car, you may not continue racing in Formula 1 after two years.”
“Lance has owned uncompetitive cars for many years and is nonetheless glad to keep committed and dreaming of one day owning a competitive car.
“Having a competitive car is part of the mission that all of us at Aston Martin share. I’m not sure if I’ll benefit from that, because, as I previously stated, I won’t be driving forever.
“But I hope he can have one day a competitive car and change the opinion of many, many people.”
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