The 18-year-old Williams driver must win points soon to silence the critics who believe he should justify his place on the grid beyond his father’s billions“The haters will always hate,” says Lance Stroll with a passivity that almost certainly belies the fact he knows there is more weight to the phrase than its throwaway juvenilia suggests.The 18-year-old Canadian rookie is already under intense pressure and about to face his toughest test on the streets of Monaco. How he comes through it will determine whether he can give his critics reason to reassess. Related: British Grand Prix at Silverstone in doubt over rising fees charged by F1 Related: Ruth Buscombe: ‘F1 drivers don’t care if a woman or a chipmunk calls...
The double F1 world champion has much to learn as he prepares to make his IndyCar debut. But his team have a proven record of crossover successFrom now until this weekend, when the grid order is set for the 101st Indianapolis 500, most of the talk emanating from the track will be about practice – a discipline measured on the speed charts and through the marks on the Brickyard’s barrier walls. Of the 30-odd drivers hoping to challenge for the Borg-Warner trophy when the race goes green on 28 May, none will face more scrutiny than Fernando Alonso – who is skipping this year’s Monaco Grand Prix to try for the second stage of motorsport’s triple crown.Maybe that scrutiny is...
The new owners of F1 showed their softer side with young Ferrari fan but are as hard-nosed as ever when it comes to the bottom line of the spiralling cost of the British Grand PrixLiberty Media scored a PR coup in working with Ferrari and finding the distraught six-year-old who had been in tears after Kimi Raikkonen’s early exit from the race. Thomas Danel from Amiens in France was brought to the motorhome to meet his hero Raikkonen and there were smiles all round. His mother, Coralie Danel, was hugely impressed:“This has been the most fantastic day for us. We could not believe it when they came to get us and took us to Ferrari,” she said. “This is great...
Drivers’ championship is shaping up to be close but a better division of F1’s massive spoils will ensure a healthier future for the whole sportFor all the positive noises being made by Liberty Media about the future of Formula One, the company that owns the sport has been positively reticent on one of the most important issues they must address. Behind the spectacle, the sound and fury of a thus far largely successful reboot, F1 is still generating huge amounts of money and as it prepares to begin the European season in Barcelona this weekend, the disparity in how it is distributed is again under public scrutiny.On track, the heightened competition at the front of the grid between Lewis Hamilton...
The first four races of the season have shown Ferrari are on the up and proved Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes have work to doBarcelona beckons as Formula One prepares to begin the European season proper, with the teams having 10 days to reflect on the four opening races and prepare for the upgrades that will be unveiled in Spain. The new regulations have thrown up a tense and gripping, rather than spectacular, prologue and the racing has been better than many feared, while there is an absolutely cracking battle at the front in prospect. Time then, to consider where the leading drivers and their teams stand before returning to the fray at the Circuit de Catalunya.Ferrari’s resurgence has proved the...