The 2022 season was only the second time in Lance Stroll’s career that he kept the same teammate from one year to the next.
On the previous occasion, during his two-year stint with Sergio Perez at Racing Point, Stroll’s performance compared to his team-mate increased from one year to the next. In terms of the score line of the qualifiers, races completed and – most importantly – points scored, Stroll’s percentages were especially better in 2020 than in 2019.
The four-time world champion decided to hang up his helmet at the end of his 15th full season in F1, but the same did not happen during his two years with Sebastian Vettel. Last year Stroll finished ahead several times. Vettel reversed that. Stroll’s team score dropped from 44% to 32% this year.
The qualifying scoreline is largely unchanged, but consistency isn’t what Stroll needs here. In his sixth year as an F1 driver, he has never qualified for a full season for a team-mate – partner Vettel, Perez, Serge Sirotin or Felipe Massa.
Vettel missed the opening two races due to Covid. After the return and the team’s shocking weekend in Australia, the pair scored a much-needed double for the team at Imola. After two races, Aston Martin introduced a major upgrade to the AMR22 that looked similar to the Red Bull RB18, although it didn’t deliver the same performance at launch.
As seen last year, the Baku city circuit was Aston Martin’s best result of the season, a sixth place finish by Vettel. He repeated it at Suzuka later in the year, thanks to a change to the intermediate tires after the restart.
Stroll added his sixth in Singapore. It was a welcome move for him deeper into the points places as he had done no better than a 10th finish in singles until then.
Advertisement | Become a RaceFans fan and
In the final season the AMR22 finally started to deliver and although Vettel often got the best of it, Stroll secured a good starting position with fifth in the American circuit. But Vettel briefly led the race and dropped to eighth place when he took himself out in an unnecessary collision with Fernando Alonso.
Vettel signed off brilliantly at Yas Marina, where he worked his way up to fourth early on, but crashed out in questionable style to finish 10th, less than a second off the points that would have moved the Aston Martin into position. In the construction championship. But he still scored more than twice as many points as his teammate.
Stroll’s cause wasn’t helped by running into other drivers, some of which weren’t his fault (including his two conversations with Pierre Gasly) while others clearly were. As happened more than once last year, a collision with Vettel, this time during the Interlagos sprint, resulted in both a delay and a penalty for Stroll.
He did the same to his future team-mate Alonso at the Circuit of the Americas, bringing the Aston Martin driver’s race to a halt. Showing an understanding of the politics of the team owned by Stroll’s father, Alonso played down the incident and said the rival’s punishment was unnecessary…
Advertisement | Become a RaceFans fan and
Advertisement | Become a RaceFans fan and
Non-representative comparisons were omitted. Negative value: Stroll was fast; Positive value: Vettel was fast.
Advertisement | Become a RaceFans fan and
2022 F1 season
Browse all 2022 F1 current articles
