Rock 'n Stroll . . . The Stroller Thread.

Latifi Sr and Mazepin Sr did exactly the same as Lawrence Stroll: they helped their sons the best way they could, with all the means they had available.
I cannot see anything wrong with that, but it seems to put some people's nose out of joint.
Stroll, Latifi and Mazepin earned a Superlicence and used family money as sponsorship.
In fact, both the Latifis and the Mazepin were probably richer than Stroll Sr.
Their sons' adventure in F1 ended for different reasons, they didn't choose it.

 

Correct. Latifi father is actually wealthier than Stroll. His ride in F1 was 100% predicated on the money his family gave to the team. If that is not the definition of buying and F1 seat I do not know what is. Mazepin was the same and he was dropped because of his inability to continue to pay which was neatly veiled by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the issues surrounding Russian athletes. You can be sure that if Mazepin still had cash the team would have found a way to dance around the Russia issue.

 

I find it amusing that people focus in on Stroll as having bought his way into F1 and hear them harp on and on about talent should be the deciding factor yet nobody talks about how Lando Norris' Dad paid tens of millions of dollars to McLaren to sign his son perhaps leapfrogging him ahead of another more talented and less wealthy driver.

Sure Lando is super talented and an F1 protégé but you can't help but feel the hypocrisy of many here.

 

No the real tragedy is the amount of talent that doesnt make due to cost. Money blocks too many already. Lance had his day, time to hit the yacht. Norris is talented and Mclaren needed the money so it talks. Is that right - no but its the world as SHAPED BY wealth much of it ill gotten like Marzipan RUS trash.. Hypocrisy aside Lance and others are blocking seats only due to money / family. As I always ask would you hire Lance. The correct realistic answer remains a firm big fat NO. Like Mick Schumacher he has marginal talent but has access via family wealth not overt talent. So..........would you hire him, Lance, based on your lecture to the crowd here???? The hypocrisy is the amount of excuses made for him lol.

 

But that's the way the world is: GROSSLY UNFAIR. The quicker you accept it, the better you will feel, believe me.
Consider that all attempts trying to bring more equality, better justice, opportunity for all, have all FAILED.
So, please, enjoy the show as it is, and stop bothering us with your angst.
There are worst "tragedies" than ambitious youngsters not reaching F1 due to lack of funds; that's laughable !
Money blocks many in reaching health, nutrition, education, housing, jobs, culture, or justice they crave for; that's the way it is !

 

Truth is that I would only hire about 6-8 of the current F1 drivers and Lance would not be one of them. So too would be a number of former race winners and drivers who have had their chance (Ricciardo for instance)

That said racing is never made up of a field of generational talents (that is a fantasy). There is always the solid mid-fielder and the back markers. I would rate Stroll as a solid mid-fielder and certainly not terrible and un-talented. The only drivers I'd be interested in hiring are mega talents but that is an equally utopic idea. Kind of like someone asking you what car do you want regardless of cost. We'll all give an answer that is miles removed from what reality dictates regardless of how good the 'realistic' car is.

 

This

Whom a team manager ultimately hires depends on so many factors other than just talent: the $ a driver brings, the following a driver brings, the reputation a driver has, the nationality he has etc

Williams hired Lance because he brought $. So there's that.
RB hired Checko because he is a good fit and #2 for Max. They didn't hire the second most talented driver.
Ferrari hired Lewis. At this point probably not the best talent around anymore but a driver with a huge following that will help the brand in selling zatschkis/swag and possibly cars to new customers.

I could very well imagine a scenario where a team hires Lance because he is Canadian if the team's main/sole sponsor is a Canadian company. Talent isn't the only factor.

 

It's also funny because Lance is definitely not the first. We discussed Andrea de Crasheris here already. Stroll Sr. didn't invent "buying a seat".

In fact if you really want to go back in history, how about the privateers who bought their own F1 car and run it? Like the yellow (for Belgium) Ferraris in the sixties?

 

You don't see anything wrong with buying your kid's successes instead of them earning it? That type of behavior shouldn't ever be respected. There's a pretty big difference between helping them succeed by providing them opportunities to show their talent and just buying 'success' for them by any means necessary, which isn't success at all. Strolls fall in the latter and yes, I find plenty wrong with that. You either end up with a kid that is completely delusional thinking they earned their way to the top when it was all daddy's billions, or a kid that actually realizes they didn't earn anything in their life and becomes disillusioned with the whole thing. Either way is a bad outcome imo and also costs talented, deserving individuals opportunity that was instead bought by someone willing to stroke a check. I don't care if it's F1 or boy scouts pinewood derby. Billionaire has nothing to do with it.

 

Of course he's not the first, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't be called out for it just like all of the others that bought their way in and didn't have the talent. It's not something to be celebrated, respected or ignored as a fan, imo.

 

We have different ethics. I leave it at that. But don't try to make me feel guilty for my opinions.

 

You make it black and white with Lance. The reality is that he has gobs of talents or he wouldn't have gotten the Superlicense AND also be driving a F1.

When BADoer raced for Ferrari, the other drivers got concerned about their safety because he was so slow and they didn't want another Villeneuve/Mass incident, particularly at Spa. Such complaints were not issued in regards to Lance.

Without talent Lance would not be in F1. The idea that you can actually buy your seat without any talent is ludicrous.

 

Yeah, it's already been discussed how daddy bought him his f3 title and hence his superlicense - and not by just buying him a seat (which I get), but by buying out the best team, giving the ability to execute team orders, paying Williams to help develop the 'spec' car (which he got caught for and a single race ban) etc. Also all the extra testing he got in f1 that no other rookie before or since has gotten. And he still is getting destroyed by his teammates. Does he have talent? Sure, maybe mid grid f3 talent, but not f1. He'd have never made it out of f3 if his dad just bought him a seat instead of also stacking the deck for him. He's made, bar none, the dumbest mistakes of anybody on the grid this season, and this is his 8th season. He's made multiple rookie mistakes this season. He doesn't belong anywhere near f1, let alone what aspires to be a top team driving alongside a two time wdc.

 

Lets start with the assumption that the drivers on Prema in F3 were all given team orders to let Lance win. This is a very tall assumption because the other Prema drivers were all paying to race themselves and were trying to establish themselves as professionals. They were customers of Prema paying HUGE money (by any metric) to race in F3 and it would do their reputation no good to be manipulated as easily as that. We must also assume that the rumors of team orders at Prema are actually true. I've been around racing a long time and conspiracy theories, especially those surrounding drivers with money, run rampant. Egos can be fragile when someone is beaten so claiming a greater force is a great way to save face and maybe a career.

That said even IF team orders existed at Prema AND the other team drivers went along with it, NO RULES WERE BROKEN. It is not like paying off a referee to manipulate a game it would be willing participants within a team. The only people who complain are those who are sore that they did not have the resources or the leverage to do it themselves. It is jealousy pure and simple.

In addition, Prema is not the only team in F3. Lance beat out an entire field of very high level drivers in different teams that Daddy Stroll had zero influence over. In fact many of his competitors were much wealthier than him anyways and were trying the same tricks. Lance won F3 in a dominating style and not just squeaked through on a technicality. F3 cars are pretty small and his Dad and his money had little influence when the green flag fell.

 

Prema was the best f3 team in that era, the stats show it prior to Stroll joining and after - they won the team championship every year from 2013-2018. Stroll pumped enough money in to not only get Lance a seat at the best (by far) f3 team, but to also control the team. How else would you explain Stroll's teammate, in only the 2nd race, qualifying on the front row, out starting Lance and then just pulling over on lap 2 to let him by? You think he did that out of the goodness of his heart? It was also proven that they cheated with illegal parts on the car, earning a dq. So yeah, rules were also broken.

Also just because rules were not broken does not make things right and ok, the same applies to laws. It's not illegal to cheat on your partner but I think most would agree that it's not right or ok to do - and those that do it and don't care probably also attribute jealousy to those that call them out on it. It has nothing to do with jealousy. It has to do with morals; right and wrong. There are plenty of things that aren't against the rules or that aren't illegal that are immoral, and deserving of contempt.

 

Recent opinions of Stroll from the Mohawk

 

It's been posted 2x on page 278.

 

When you start to introduce morality in the discussion it becomes a slippery slope very fast. Competitive activities REQUIRE hard and fast rules not what 'feels' like the fair thing.

In 2021 Hamilton was disqualified in Brazil due to a technical irregularity that was so incredibly miniscule that any reasonable person knew it made absolutely no difference to the outcome. The dimension of the car is absolute with no room for interpretation.

In Vegas Sainz was penalized for a service cover damaging his car which had nothing to do with him. EVERYBODY felt for him and thought he did nothing wrong but the rules are what they are and he was an unfortunate victim of them.

As for morality, is it morally ok that Perez (who in no way factored into the championship) held up Hamilton in Abu Dhabi 2021 to help Max catch up? The definition of what 'sporting' is can be wildly variable and impossible to police. I prefer to look at things from the perspective of the real world and not of what my individual perception of what I think it 'should' look like.

 

F1 has many 'rules' that are not hard and fast - see Alonso's penalty in Australia. If we are not giving our individual perceptions, what is the point of this forum?

At to Perez on Hamilton, that was on track at least, Stroll's mechanations are largely off track. It's the on track part where things become evident, in that Lance does not belong.

 

Sorry if it's been reposted. How can a video be on page 278 of a 700 page thread when the video is 3 days old? haha.

 

William nobody here give a **** about how you feel.

 

You must have a different number of posts per page displayed, I'm only seeing this as page 280. But yeah that video is almost a perfect description of the issue, and how delusional Lance is to think he earned his spot.

 

That's his 2nd one of Lance Stroll but you're correct. This 2nd one goes into much deeper of the Strolls in F3 and Lance Strolls F3 performance was all a fabrication which essentially means nothing......then his father BUYING his son into the Williams seat for $80million USD because Cliare Williams needed the money as well. Lance Stroll didn't get into F1 by talent or sponsorship or both.

I wonder how many F1 drivers fathers have put up $80 million USD just to get an F1 seat.

 

Who rattled your cage ????