Williams announced today its driver lineup for next season. As expected, Valtteri Bottas has signed on for another year with the team, but the bigger announcement is the addition of rookie driver Lance Stroll.
The young Canadian is only 18 years old, but has been working his way up the motor racing ladder already for years. The son of billionaire fashion magnate (and noted Ferrari collector) Lawrence Stroll, young Lance first blipped on the radar screen in 2010 when, at just 11 years old, he was signed to Ferrari’s development program – and promptly beat one of the Scuderia’s star drivers in a karting race in his home town of Montreal.
Last year he switched to Williams as a development driver. All the while he’s advanced from karts up to single-seaters, winning the Italian Formula 4 Championship in 2014, New Zealand’s Toyota Racing Series in 2015, and the European Formula 3 title in 2016 – winning 14 out of 17 rounds this year.
He hasn’t avoided controversy along the way, however, for an aggressive driving style that has resulted in more than his fair share of crashes.
Stroll will be filling the seat next year vacated by the retirement of Felipe Massa, who also switched from Ferrari to Williams a few years ago after a long career in F1 that started in 2002 with Sauber.
His senior Finnish teammate Bottas will now embark upon his fifth season of grand prix racing, having started out with Williams as a test driver in 2012 before making his race debut the following season. Neither he nor the team have won a grand prix since, but he has landed himself on the podium an impressive nine times so far.
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