Stroll hits back at Aston Martin replacement talk: “Short-minded opinions”

Lance Stroll has responded to claims that he should be replaced at Aston Martin after not scoring points since the Miami Formula 1 sprint race.

Stroll had a relatively strong start to the season, bagging eight points during the opening race in Australia and two points in the Chinese Grand Prix. However, he has failed to score points in any grand prix since then, with fifth place in the Miami sprint his best result in that run.

The Canadian driver also missed the Spanish Grand Prix due to his wrist injury resurfacing.

Timo Glock claimed on Sky Deutschland during the Canadian GP weekend that the Silverstone-based squad should drop the 26-year-old.

“Sporting-wise, he’s definitely not where he needs to be after his long time in Formula 1,” Glock argued. “He has had relatively clear deficit and hasn’t been able to convince with consistency this year, either.

“There’s always a weekend where he seems to be catching up with Fernando Alonso. But over the course of a whole year, he’s simply too far behind [and] too inconsistent. He then makes the mistakes accordingly.

“In the current situation, you would have to reposition yourself to be successful.”

Stroll responded to the claims, telling the media in Austria: “I think Formula 1 is a business with very short-minded opinions [sic] and if you have two good races, you’re the best driver in the world. And if you have two bad ones, you’re not good enough and you shouldn’t be here anymore, and you’re shit.

“That’s the business. That’s how it’s always been. It’s how it always will be.

“I think when you have a crap day, you don’t enjoy having a crap day. When you have a good day, you enjoy having a good day. So I think that’s also just how it is.”

Stroll revealed a fairly laid-back approach to this, explaining that he keeps his circle small and just focuses on what he’s doing and can control.

“I think it is what it is,” he said. “I like to focus on what I’m doing and the people around me, my engineer, my team that know what’s going on and know the reasons behind what happened every weekend, and how it could have been better, why it was a bit worse or whatever.

“I like to keep that circle small and focus my energy on that.”