This is the second installment in a new series exploring how the people of F1 got to their positions. If you’re young enough, you may take inspiration from these stories. If not, you can try to live vicariously through your children and make them follow one of these paths. Enjoy.
Lance Stroll is the young (only 18!) hotshot driver from Williams. He’s two races into his rookie season. Just like you, he’s never completed an F1 race! So could you be the next Lance Stroll?
Probably not. Lance Stroll’s father is worth over two billion dollars and bankrolled his son’s career. With
that reveal, I know that about 60% of our readers are now having a hard time relating to this little shit, but let’s see how he did it.
It all started in 2008, at the age of 10, when Lance got into karting. Now, he was good, but it may have had a little something to do with the fact that his father owned the racing Circuit Mont-Tremblant. It’s a bit easier to become good when you can roll out of bed and practice on one of the best racing circuits in Canada, eh? Lance karted for the next six years, conquering the Canadian leagues and graduating to Europe. Daddy Stroll made sure that Lance always had the best equipment. For the last three karting years, he was spending 10 million dollars per year. The gas lawnmowers at F1 Boston, these were not.
At age 16, Lance graduated to single seater cars. He raced in the Euro F3 league for three years. The last two years were spent on a team that his good ol’ dad bought outright. When Lance become a test driver at Williams, his dad purchased a 15 million dollar driving simulator “for Williams”. It was calibrated for F3, so even the F1 drivers couldn’t use it.
Last year, Lance Stroll won the F3 championship and, given the vacancy at Williams, skipped F2 altogether and now drives for F1. The last driver to make that jump: Max Verstappen. And as they say, the rest is history.