Szafnauer: Stroll ‘fully deserving’ of 2021 seat
Racing Point boss Otmar Szafnauer believes Lance Stroll’s form this season proves he is “fully deserving” of a place in the team in 2021 when it rebrands as Aston Martin.
Stroll is enjoying his best-ever start to a Formula 1 campaign since making his debut with Williams in 2017, scoring 57 points in the opening nine races.
The 21-year-old is outscoring his more experienced team-mate Sergio Perez, although the Mexican sat out two races through testing positive for COVID-19.
Having confirmed Stroll, who claimed his second career podium at Monza, alongside new signing Sebastian Vettel next year at the team owned by his father Lawrence, Szafnauer is pleased with the Canadian’s progress this season.
“The main thing is that there’s more to come from Lance, and the team too,” Szafnauer said ahead of this weekend’s Russian Grand Prix.
“It’s been a really strong season for Lance – his best so far with some very mature performances in qualifying and the races.
“After the Monza podium, he was sitting fourth in the championship with just the Mercedes drivers and Verstappen ahead.
“He’s in the ascendancy and clearly demonstrating his talent, and why he is fully deserving of his place alongside Sebastian next year.”
With four-time world champion Vettel on board and the team evolving into Aston Martin, Szafnauer is excited what the future holds for the Silverstone-based outfit.
“We’ve increased the size of the team by 25% in two years, so we’ve hired a significant amount of people,” he said.
“We’ve got great backing from Aston Martin, from title sponsor BWT, from Lawrence and the consortium. Because of it, we can now afford to do things that we couldn’t in the past.
“And those are things like a new factory, more manufacturing capability, hiring people that will bring performance to the car.
“It’s 1000 little things that will make the car go quicker. And that gives me great hope for the future. I think we will take a step up.”