Fernando Alonso backed Lance Stroll to reach Formula 1 stardom and revealed what his Aston Martin teammate needs to improve to reach the next level.
He made the comments ahead of the 2023 Canadian Grand Prix, Stroll‘s fifth home race of his career and he made his debut in 2017.
Stroll outqualified Alonso for the first time in 2023 at the previous Spanish GP, though he only finished ahead of the Spaniard as Alonso held station behind his teammate rather than overtaking.
“I think for him the most important thing now is to get the consistency weekend after weekend,” Alonso told the media ahead of he Canadian GP.
“Many times in the past with Lance, in wet qualifying, at the start of races and lap one performance, these kind of things are outstanding.
“Then some other weekends that maybe the result was not coming or you get in a bad lap in qualifying or something like that, and then the weekend’s compromised.
“So, I think that consistency is going to be the next step in his career to be constantly fighting for the top five and then at the end of the year, you see the amount of points that you gain when you get all the weekends right.”
Why Alonso believes Stroll will make jump to greatness
Stroll has flashed at moments in his F1 career, with three podiums to his name and a memorable 2020 Turkish GP pole position.
However, he’s a streaky driver that can get in bad runs of form when things don’t go his way. His eventual ninth place in Turkey was just one of three point-scoring finishes in the second half of 2020 after he’d hit the midway mark fourth in the championship.
And before the 2023 Spanish GP, he’d twice missed out on points while Alonso finished on the podium.
But Alonso backed Stroll to make that leap with Aston Martin, and become a star in F1.
Alonso added: “With the motivation, the commitment that he has and the team that Aston Martin is building now, I think it’s a matter of time before that will come.”
