Lance Stroll makes frank Fernando Alonso admission after 2023 pace struggles

Lance Stroll has made the surprise admission that Fernando Alonso was “just quicker” than him last season in the Aston Martin car.

Such is the pride and self-determination of F1 drivers that it is rare they ever admit to one of their grid mates being quicker than them.

But in Stroll’s case, he has openly conceded that Alonso was faster after the Spaniard scored 132 more points in their first season together.

Lance Stroll concedes Fernando Alonso ‘quicker’ in 2023

Stroll is heading into his eighth season of Formula 1 but on just one occasion has he beaten his team-mate over the course of a season, Sergey Sirotkin with Williams in 2018.

But 2023 represented a competitive defeat to Alonso who scored all eight of Aston Martin’s podiums.

To Stroll’s credit, he was big enough to admit Alonso was “just quicker.”

“He was just quicker,” Stroll told media including PlanetF1.com. “So I have some ideas on where to work on, some things that I want to improve on, for sure, in that regard.

“I don’t like to use the word luck but I think we had a lot of misfortune last year. I think that kind of made things more challenging when we were fighting for good positions.

“Last year, there were a lot of races where we had technical issues. Things just didn’t go our way so we want to just build on last year.”

As for his goals in 2024, he would love to get Aston Martin’s first F1 win.

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“I feel like I can be a better driver, some of the races where I felt physically I could have been stronger,” he conceded. “Those kinds of things, just the usual stuff.

“Every year, I think a new year. So going into this year, I learned, I evolved, I think about what I can do better, how it can be better.

“Then also just like take on the year and then see what happens. Every year is a very different year in Formula 1. It depends a lot on where the car’s at, depends a lot on many factors.

“But I would like to see us definitely fight for some big results this year, score a lot of points. Fight for podiums and to win in green would be nice. First win in green would be nice.”

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