There have been plenty of surprising performances on the Formula 1 grid both positive and negative this season.
The F1 campaign is now a third of the way completed and for the first time since 2021, Max Verstappen has some competition at the front of the grid.
That doesn’t mean that there aren’t drivers further down the pecking order that deserve praise and speaking on the Drive to Wynn Podcast, British racing driver Justin Bell wanted to give some credit to one racer who’s currently outside the top ten in the Drivers’ Championship.
Intra-team battles are sometimes the best way to assess how well a driver is performing, especially when several teams are finding it difficult to finish in the points.
Surprisingly, one of those teams is Aston Martin, who have only added four points to their tally in the past three race weekends.
Bell wanted to highlight that he’s been surprised with how well Lance Stroll has performed for Aston Martin this season compared to Fernando Alonso.
While the Canadian – who has 279 career points in F1 – currently only has a third of the points his teammate has accumulated throughout the campaign, in the last few races his performances have improved.
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Justin Bell says Lance Stroll has made him eat his words this season
The current Formula 1 ruleset has existed for long enough that the gaps between each team is smaller than arguably it ever has been in the history of the sport.
During the most dominant periods of Michael Schumacher or Ayrton Senna’s careers, the nearest driver to them in qualifying could be more than a second behind them.
In Monaco, the top 18 cars were covered by a smaller margin than that, and only Sauber were in the same ballpark as the rest of the grid.
That has made each upgrade package that teams produce more and more vital and two teams have stood out this year as failing to fully understand what’s going to make their cars faster.
Mercedes have infamously struggled since the end of the 2021 season and that has played its part in Lewis Hamilton deciding to join Ferrari next year.
The other team is Aston Martin, who started the season on the heels of Mercedes and McLaren and are now looking over their shoulders at RB, Haas and Williams.
In the past few races, Fernando Alonso has particularly struggled, getting knocked out in Q1 at Imola and Monaco.
This has allowed Stroll to show that he can match the Spaniard at times, impressing Bell, although he did make one crucial error on the streets of Monte Carlo.
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Lance Stroll standing out in a difficult-to-drive Aston Martin
Speaking about the Canadian driver, Bell said: “Formula 1 is such a savage sport though and it should be at the top, you should be fighting for your place and I’ve got to say, I’ve kind of ended up having to eat my words a bit with Aston Martin and seeing Lance [Stroll].
“He’s running really well, he’s ahead of his teammate Fernando Alonso in the last couple of races.
“And you know, daddy owns the team, so we’ll leave him out of it.”
Stroll will hope he can return to the points at his home Grand Prix in Canada on Sunday.
His drive at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix to get into the points deserved a lot of credit.
However, his mistake in Monaco when put on the soft tyres after some fine defensive driving from his teammate highlights the mistakes he’s capable of making.
Stroll made a similar error in Saudi Arabia that ended his race and he’ll be hoping to avoid the Wall of Champions made famous in 1999 in Montreal.
The post ‘Running really well’: British driver admits that 279-point F1 star has made him ‘eat his words’ this season appeared first on F1 Oversteer.