Teenager Lance Stroll will make his Formula 1 debut with Williams in 2017, taking the place of Felipe Massa, who is retiring at the end of the season. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/37860557
Interesting read , reminds me of the spoilt child from Charlie and the chocolate family to be honest. Time will tell I suppose but doesn't strike me as a great driver to add to the team (apart from the financial input )!
With a no teammate can overtake rule and an upgraded engine compared to the field (thanks to his dad's money). I'll reserve judgement for now . . . . .
I think this also highlights how wealth can circumnavigate the testing rules. Does this not come under Williams budget?
I'd have thought that is irrelevant and just gone under a different division for accounting purposes with Williams and Mercedes staff sub contracted to the roles. I'll be very surprised if he's any good !
Willing to give him a chance, money doesn't mean he'll be bad, doesn't mean he'll be good either. He's getting some extra prep which is good, putting the money to good use. I hope he does well, more for Williams sake than anything else.
That was sort of my point. I can't help but feel that these testing restrictions have really affected young driver development and opportunity. The fact that he his able to use his own wealth where others couldn't, wouldn't, sort of devalues the whole thing. This is very common in lower formula.
Is it much different to what Ferrari did/still do about putting youngsters in 3 year old F1 cars around Fiorano?
Every driver needs some kind of financial sponsorship, you can't just rock up and expect a seat like that these days. Michael had Willi Weber's support. Of course if you are a certain Pastor Maldonado with deep pockets and not a lot of talent on the track...
Yep, unless you get picked out as part of a young driver program, you either need pots of cash or be related to a former racing driver to stand much chance of getting noticed. Schuey had the support of Weber and was part of the same Merc junior team that had Karl Wendlinger and H-H-Frentzen, and for at least one race with Jordan was actually a pay driver! Incredible to think Merc bought him a seat at Jordan otherwise he potentially may have not made the grid at all in F1 as the hot money at the time was on H-H-F to be the quickest of all of them!
I called the Kmag move but didn't see Palmer retaining his seat. I'm assuming Merc have won the battle over Ocon?
Good test for both of them. Kmag to show how he fares against Grosjean and Palmer against Hulk. Always hard to see whether Kmag was not as good as expected, or Palmer was closer than some gave him credit for. Both now up against established F1 drivers to give a better comparison.