Williams hasn’t been taking advice from Red Bull on how to prepare a Formula Three driver for Formula One, instead, using tried and tested methods to prepare Lance Stroll for his F1 debut.
The Canadian didn’t participate in any free practice sessions in 2016, but he has begun a testing programme similar to the one Jacques Villeneuve ran in 1995.
The programme is different to those usually run by “proper” test drivers, according to Williams’ outgoing technical chief Pat Symonds.
“Generally speaking, with all the guys who were proper test drivers, they went and did testing so they got the miles under their belt,” he told Motorsport.com. “But the focus was always on them developing the car rather than on us developing the drivers.”
Stroll’s programme focuses on developing the driver as the teenager faces a steeper learning curve than most F1 rookies with the jump from F3 with no F1 race weekend experience.
Indeed only Max Verstappen has made the same jump in recent times but he did complete several Friday morning’s with Toro Rosso at the end of 2014.
“For example, in Abu Dhabi, he did pitstop practice and we had the full pitstop crew and pitstop practice after pitstop practice after pitstop practice. The crew didn’t need that practice, but he does. That is where the focus is,” Symonds explained.
Williams has until the end of March to get Stroll up to speed, but, as a veteran of the sport, Symonds says the teenager is a fast learner, so it shouldn’t be a problem.
“What we can do is look at what lance is doing with his data compared to Valtteri [Bottas] in 2014 and Felipe [Massa] – and I’ve been quite impressed.
“He gets down to learning a circuit quite quickly, that is always a hallmark of a good driver, and by the end of two days in the car, he is running quite well.
“What is more – he is learning. A lot of driving an F1 car now is about managing tyres and learning to manage tyres, learning the stuff that engineers bleat on about all the time is actually true.”
Comments.
Loading comments…