Lance Stroll is into his ninth season in Formula 1 in 2025 and his fifth with Aston Martin after his father Lawrence rebranded the team from Racing Point in 2021.

The Canadian has not had it easy at the Silverstone outfit, having had two multiple-world champions as teammates. Sebastian Vettel moved to Aston Martin from Ferrari in 2021 as some much-needed experience after Sergio Perez left for Red Bull.

Toto Wolff felt Vettel would ‘thrive’ at Aston Martin after having a torrid end to his spell at Ferrari. While, at face value, his results with the Silverstone outfit did not stand out, he was regularly challenging for points, scoring an incredible podium at Baku in 2021.

The German outperformed Stroll in his two seasons with the team, who struggled to find the same consistency. Vettel retired at the end of 2022 and was replaced by Fernando Alonso, who helped turn Aston Martin into a strong frontrunner.

The Spaniard scored eight podiums and finished fourth in the standings in 2023 as Aston Martin took a major step forward in development. But again, Stroll could not match his teammate’s performance levels as he failed to score a podium.

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Lance Stroll is ‘buried in the data’ like Sebastian Vettel while Aston Martin engineers are on curfew

Alonso has brought a new edge to Aston Martin that had not been seen while Vettel was at the team. But the two world champions, as well as Stroll, have all possessed the same trait behind the scenes, which shows their desire to push the team forward.

Speaking with the official F1 website, engineer Ben Michell says the trio were all ‘buried in the data’ at the factory, even while the staff were on curfew. He says that it can be ‘really valuable’ for the drivers, and it helps the engineers to understand how much information to give them.

“I’ve had situations where I’ve walked into the office and Fernando’s sat there with his laptop and tapping his watch going ‘where are you guys?’ and we’ve been on curfew!” he said.

“Sebastian Vettel was the same, Lance too, they’ll be there buried in the data. Sometimes for them that’s really valuable and gives them an insight and helps them. Sometimes it can just add noise that doesn’t allow them to drive as freely as possible.

“What you have to understand – and that’s part of the role of being a race engineer – is whether your driver is in a place to be receptive to that information, or do they just need to keep it very simple, and be able to just have a clearer focus to get the most out of the car?

“If there’s particular challenges there might be a driver who says ‘don’t give me more info, just let me drive the car, and we’ll get there’. You get a feel for their mood depending on their body language and how they say hello in the morning.

“That’s one of the key things you learn. Maybe today isn’t the day to show him loads of aero plots, today’s the day to just go, ‘right, we’ll go out, get a good gap on track and let you express yourself.’

“And there’s days where that’s the right approach, and then there’s days where you need to go into the detail more, and you have to learn that – you don’t always get it right, the same as in any relationship, some days you overstep but you talk about it and you learn from that.”

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Aston Martin have already missed an opportunity with Adrian Newey to help Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso

Aston Martin have struggled to reach the same heights as 2023 over the last two seasons. While they matched their fifth-place finish in 2024, they scored 186 fewer points.

It has been a frustrating season for the team thus far in 2025, with Alonso scoring his first points of the year in Barcelona. Stroll had been picking up points for Aston Martin, but his teammate has now equalled his points tally as the Silverstone outfit sits seventh in the standings.

Aston Martin enjoyed their strongest weekend of the season at the Hungarian GP as the duo reached Q3 and finished P5 and P7. Alonso congratulated Stroll on social media for his performance; the team will be hoping that they have turned a corner in 2025 after an inconsistent start.

Team principal Andy Cowell admits Aston Martin missed an opportunity with Adrian Newey by not having him help develop their 2025 car. The legendary engineer is fully focused on the 2026 regulations and turning the team into a title contender.