‘Very underrated’ Lance Stroll ‘as quick as Fernando’

Lance Stroll is “unbeatable” in many corners at any given track, but Aston Martin ambassador Pedro de la Rosa believes his problem is putting everything together in qualifying.

Stroll made history last time out at Monza when he became the first Formula 1 driver to suffer 100 Q1 eliminations, having finished slowest of all. He added to that tally at the Madring on Saturday, where he was P22 in qualifying.

Pedro de la Rosa backs Lance Stroll to match Fernando Alonso

The Canadian, who has partnered Sergey Sirotkin, Felipe Massa, Sergio Perez, Sebastian Vettel, and more recently Fernando Alonso, has only once beaten teammate in the Drivers’ Championship in his ten seasons in Formula 1, finishing 18th in 2018, ahead of Sirotkin in 20th.

This season he is trailing Alonso in qualifying and race head-to-heads, as well as in the points.

The Canadian is 11-2 down in qualifying, sits 7-2 behind his teammate in the Grand Prix head-to-head, and has yet score a point while Alonso has three to his name.

But ex-McLaren and Jaguar racer de la Rosa insists Stroll is a match for his more illustrious teammate.

Fernando Alonso v Lance Stroll: Aston Martin F1 2026 scores

F1 2026: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between teammates

F1 2026: Head-to-head race statistics between teammates

“Lance is super fast,” de la Rosa told the Beyond The Grid podcast.

“I love to watch data because I’m data-driven, and I like to see where one driver is faster than the other. And Lance, in many circuits, in many corners, is unbeatable.

“It’s not like you can say Lance is fast in high-speed, Fernando in… They’re both very evenly matched.

“Lance is extremely quick in all types of corners.”

The problem, though, is the Canadian struggles to put together a clean qualifying session.

De la Rosa explained: “It’s just that sometimes he’s had some mistakes in qualifying or little things that then eventually, if you don’t qualify up there, it just compromises the whole weekend.

“That’s where he’s missing. It’s just sometimes putting everything together in quali.

“But sometimes he gets it in quali and he outqualifies Fernando, which is like… I mean, we’re talking about Fernando Alonso, you know.

“And in races, his race pace is impressive as well. He’s very good managing tyres.”

He added that, in his belief, Stroll is undervalued as a F1 driver, and backed him to show his worth when Aston Martin improves its car.

“I think Lance is a very underrated driver,” he added.

“When we improve the car and make it a bit more driver-friendly – I must say it’s a very difficult car right now for many reasons, not only car, chassis, but also on the engine, we have to make improvements on driveability – whenever the car is driving properly, he’s as quick as Fernando.

“There’s no question about that.”

Stroll is one of three drivers without a single point on the board in F1 2026, and sits 21st in the Drivers’ Championship, only ahead of Cadillac teammates Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez.

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