Stroll: ’The pieces of the puzzle are coming together’
Sunday’s race will be the Aston Martin driver’s sixth time racing at the Australian Grand Prix after making his debut with Williams in 2017
Jewish Canadian Formula 1 driver Lance Stroll told media on Thursday that he has “good memories” of racing at Melbourne’s Albert Park over the last couple of years.
Sunday’s race, which this year kicks off season 2025, will be the Aston Martin driver’s sixth time racing at the Australian Grand Prix after making his debut with Williams in 2017.
“I’ve had good races here, good results … I like the track, I like the atmosphere around the weekend,” he said.
Asked if he expected 2025 to be a long and difficult season, Stroll said, “We’re going to try our best, as we always do.
“We do what we can with what we have. Some tracks might be stronger than other tracks. We’ll try and make the most out of the season, like we do every season.”
Addressing his confidence with the car compared to last year, he said it was a “relative game”.
“The car can feel great and still be slow, and the car can feel terrible and be fast,” he said. “So I think we’ll just see how we look this weekend, the first few races, and how competitive we are.”
Stroll said Aston Martin is playing “the long game here”.
“We have all the tools, pieces of the puzzle coming together to be a front running team. Now we just got to get it done,” he said. “Everyone wants that to happen overnight. Does it happen overnight? No. How quickly does it happen? No one has an answer that question. It’s just, you know, we just gotta push as hard as we can. Keep grinding every day.”
He described the major regulations changes coming to the sport in 2026 as a “huge opportunity”. “Is it going to all happen automatically in 2026? No, we have to still work hard make the right decisions for that set of regulations,” he said.
“It’s not just gonna fall into our laps … so there’s a lot of focus, a lot of opportunity. We recognise that, it’s exciting. We’ve just got to keep out heads down and keep pushing on a little bit.”
He also expressed optimism about Aston Martin partnering with Honda from 2026 for its engines, calling it “very exciting” and a “big opportunity … to really do everything from scratch”.
“I think that is another opportunity for us to grow as a team and be better,” Stroll said. “They’ve won the last championships with Max [Verstappen], so, you know, [they’ve] been very successful for many years.”
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