Lance Stroll on turning down the volume: “Don’t take criticism from someone you wouldn’t take advice from”
The paddock at Zandvoort is not a quiet place. It’s a wind tunnel for opinions, and Lance Stroll knows exactly how many of them swirl around his career. He also doesn’t particularly care.
“If I buy into it, it bothers me for sure,” Stroll said in an in-house Aston Martin video. “That’s where I’m fortunate. I have good people around me that I love and trust, and I value their opinions. I try to live in my world, not that world.” Then the line he’s clearly adopted as policy: “Don’t take criticism from someone you wouldn’t take advice from.”
It’s not hard to see why Stroll’s adopted that stance. He’s always had more noise than most. He arrived in Formula 1 at 18, fresh off a dominant European F3 title in 2016, straight into the Williams furnace in 2017. The podium in Baku that season and, later, a stunning pole in the 2020 Turkish Grand Prix are more than asterisks — they’re genuine high points. But the surname has been a magnet. With father Lawrence’s influence at Williams, then Racing Point and now Aston Martin, every lull has come with a chorus of “earned vs. inherited.”
The other context often skipped: his teammates. Sebastian Vettel. Fernando Alonso. Felipe Massa. That’s a Mount Everest of yardsticks. Beating any of them over a season is a big ask for most of the grid.
Stroll’s self-assessment isn’t chest-thumping. It’s more pragmatic. He calls the sport’s feedback cycle what it is: fickle. “There’s always going to be criticism,” he said. “People are short-minded. You have a couple of good races, you’re great. You have a couple of bad ones, you suck. That’s never going to change.”
Aston Martin’s 2025 has demanded resilience. The team is in the thick of a blunt midfield fight as the year winds down, scratching for points on Sundays and trying to find a development thread that sticks. It’s the kind of season where the headlines don’t come easily — and where your mental game matters almost as much as your right foot.
“We can talk about the podiums and the poles, but let’s talk about the losses,” Stroll said, leaning into the part most drivers prefer to skirt. “That’s where you learn the most about yourself. How can you come back next week and be better? We all love the champagne, but it’s really in those hard moments that we grow.”
That growth, for Stroll, is engineered by routine. There’s nothing flashy about it, which is probably the point. “Structure and consistency is really important,” he explained. “Stay consistent with my routine on and off the track — training, mental prep, what I’m focusing on going into the weekend, the conditions, the challenges.” And then, crucially, knowing when to step away. “That disconnection. Taking time when we’re not racing to switch off, recharge, reset, and then get back into it. Balance is key.”
He reaches for a golfer’s metaphor to make it simple. “You can get so obsessed with your swing and everything you’re doing, but sometimes you’ve got to switch off and come back tomorrow and take a swing at it.” It’s a tidy way of describing the modern F1 headspace: total focus without spinning yourself into a spiral.
For all the background noise, the equation inside the garage is straightforward. Fernando Alonso is on the other side of the Aston Martin pit box — still fast, still relentless, still the reference. The bar’s high every Saturday and Sunday. Stroll’s job is to clear it often enough to tilt the narrative back his way.
There’s no grandstanding here, no attempt to reframe a career in a soundbite. Just a driver who’s learned how to work in the static. If he keeps that loop tight — ignore the chatter, listen to the circle that matters, show up with the same habits every week — the rest tends to correct itself. Results have a way of drowning out the paddock choir anyway.
