Stroll branded ‘the greatest pay driver of all time’ in F1
Stroll has struggled to shake off the 'pay driver' tag ever since he made his F1 debut with Williams in 2017, with him bringing a financial package courtesy of his billionaire father Lawrence.
The 24-year-old Canadian joined Racing Point after the team was bought by a consortium of investors led by his father, who rebranded the team as Aston Martin in 2021.
Having arrived in F1 on the back of a dominant, title-winning F3 campaign, Stroll has gone on to claim one pole position and three podium finishes in his grand prix to date.
But that has failed to stop critics from claiming Stroll is only on the F1 grid due to his father's money.
Former team manager Windsor believes Stroll’s presence in F1 has ultimately been a positive for the sport.
“You could argue that Lance Stroll is the greatest pay driver of all time because, yes, he’s there because his dad is paying all the bills, but at least his dad has gone out and created a new team out of an old one, Aston Martin,” Windsor said.
“The payment for Lance to be in Formula 1 has been a very constructive thing and it’s given a lot of jobs to a lot of people and it’s a whole new thing.
“So in that sense you’ve got to say: ‘Wow, that’s the perfect use of being a pay driver – and he’s got a reasonable amount of talent as well.’”
Windsor pointed out that some of the best F1 drivers of all time had to pay their way onto the grid one way or another.
He continued: “If you go through the grid, quite a lot of drivers at some point would have had to have begged and borrowed money to get to the next level of motor racing. And does that make them a paying driver?
“[Look at] Nigel Mansell mortgaging his house to do five Formula 3 races with March in 1978: does that make him a paying driver? It kind of does, doesn’t it? If he hadn’t paid that money to March, he wouldn’t have raced in ’78 and probably would never have made Formula 1.
“Niki Lauda [got] a bank loan to get the BRM deal. Michael [Schumacher], I guess, at some point [was a pay driver].
“Everybody who’s an Aston Martin fan should be very grateful that Lance Stroll is a Formula 1 driver, because if he wasn’t his father wouldn’t have bought the team and it wouldn’t be Aston Martin.
“The whole thing is hinged around Lance Stroll. Without him, there wouldn’t be an Aston Martin Formula 1 team because his dad wouldn’t be doing it.
“Without Stroll there would be no Aston Martin, so there’s no point even thinking: ‘They need a better driver than Stroll’ – anybody who thinks that doesn’t understand the genesis of the team.
“I don’t think they think in terms of [winning] the Constructors’ Championship, I think they just want to go out and do was well as they can in every race. Obviously there are budgetary controls now that were not around before but, equally, they’ve got much more money as a team than they’ve ever had before and they’re going into that great new factory with all those facilities, they’ve got very good people there still.
“So they will be hoping that, on the back of all that, they can be up there with Red Bull. That’s what they’re hoping.
“And I think the old man thinks, as long as they’ve got Lance in one car, they’re 90 per cent of the way there. All they need is another driver that Lance can match himself against and can maybe win some races if Lance isn’t winning races.
“I’m sure that’s how he thinks. I’m sure he thinks if that car is capable of winning a World Championship, Lance Stroll is quite capable of being World Champion.
“And I don’t think Lawrence Stroll would be in Formula 1 if he didn’t think that – any more than any driver would be in Formula 1 if they didn’t think they could win a grand prix, and therefore the World Championship. There’s a massive amount of ambition there.”
Stroll currently sits ninth in the 2023 F1 championship with a best result of fourth in Australia, while teammate Fernando Alonso lies third in the standings with six podium finishes from 11 races.
