Lance Stroll is certainly an opinion divider in Formula 1, but no one can argue that he’s not a fighter.
The Canadian three-time podium finisher often faces criticism over the fact his father owns his Aston Martin team, but there was no chance he was going to let billionaire Lawrence down in 2023.
Anticipation was rife over Aston’s form heading into that campaign after a stunning showing in pre-season, although Stroll wasn’t part of it.
With excitement like never before since his father purchased the team in 2018, Stroll Junior missed out on Bahrain testing after a cycling accident left him with two broken wrists.
It was left to new teammate Fernando Alonso to take the headlines, and he duly did, showcasing impressive pace in his first outings in British Racing Green.
It looked like it was going to be all down to him to lead the charge at the season opener just ten days later, but Stroll instead made an epic return with his wrists bandaged up.
Some might say his unexpected recovery was prompted by Aston’s unexpected pace, but it could well have been down to his tetchy relationship with Alonso.
The pair had clashed exactly a year earlier at the same location in testing when the unexpectedly battled wheel-to-wheel in scenes rarely ever seen in pre-season.
Alonso complained about his future teammate over team radio as they pushed each other off track for almost an entire lap, in what commentator David Croft called ‘proper racing’.
Co-commentator Martin Brundle added: “Alonso was just playing games wasn’t he?”
Earlier they’d crashed in a United States Grand Prix first lap collision in 2018 when Alonso branded the Canadian ‘impossible to race with’.
So the motivation of having Alonso as your teammate was clearly felt by Stroll, who pushed himself to the limit for their first race together as colleagues in 2023.
Rocking up for the season opener, the No.18 driver managed to take his seat for practice and wasn’t far off the Spaniard next to him in the garage, plonking his Aston eighth on the grid the following day, three places behind Alonso.
However, on Sunday, it almost ended in disaster.
Stroll had a sublime start to the Grand Prix and had the chance to pass his new two-time world champion teammate at turn four and put a marker down.
Yet he managed to lock up and nearly clear both of them out of the race.
Thankfully for the Silverstone team, the damage from their touch wasn’t substantial, and Alonso came home in an impressive third, with Stroll a just as impressive sixth, given what he was going through.
Speaking to the media post-race, he said: “I am in pain, but I was grinding it out at the end just thinking about picking up those points.
“The last two weeks have been the most insane two weeks of my life.
“A terrible time to crash on a bicycle, the doctors were telling me maybe Australia [for a return], maybe Baku and the light at the end of the tunnel was very hard to see.
“But I had an incredible medical team that helped me along the way.”
Explaining his near-miss with Alonso, he continued: “I was down the inside of [George] Russell, trying to stay ahead of him and brake late and then Fernando tried to cut back so really stopped the car in the middle of turn four.
“We just came together, so really horrible timing for all of those things to happen with the great car we had but very fortunate that we both saved it and went on to have a good race and score some points.
“My wrists were on fire after that, I was kind of shedding a few tears after that.
“But most importantly we both stayed on track and went on to have a good race, so dodged a bullet there.”
Unfortunately for Stroll, even with good wrists the race proved to be indicative of the remainder of the season, with Alonso claiming three more podiums and fourth-place in the standings.
Stroll, down in tenth, and a season-best result of fourth, but plenty of credit in the bank for his miraculous recovery in Bahrain, even if it was a rivalry with Alonso that prompted it.
