Adrian Newey launches strong defence of “unfair” Lance Stroll reputation

Adrian Newey has jumped to the defence of Lance Stroll, insisting he receives undue criticism.

The driver is the son of Aston Martin team owner Lawrence Stroll, the billionaire with a dream to conquer Formula 1.

The team owner attracted two-time champion Fernando Alonso to Aston Martin, and more recently convinced Newey to jump ship from Red Bull.

Aston Martin have been linked with big-money bids to lure Max Verstappen, too.

But his son Lance Stroll is an enduring presence in their car despite occasional analysis that his performances do not merit it.

Stroll is into his fifth season as an Aston Martin driver and his best overall result was 10th in the 2021 F1 standings.

But Newey sees something different in the Canadian driver.

He "has an unfairly bad rap, on average", Newey told the BBC.

"Any driver who gets to Formula 1 is clearly very good,” he added.

“But I think Lance is much better than people who've been very poor."

Adrian Newey makes Lewis Hamilton admission

Newey, widely regarded as the best F1 car designer in history, oversaw two glory periods at Red Bull.

But he has never hidden a desire to work with Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.

"Fernando, he's such a cool character," Newey said.

"He's been an enemy for many years, along with Lewis, and I think I've said before that you can only work with so many drivers, but two drivers I always wanted that I felt I would enjoy working with, were Lewis and Fernando, and I couldn't work with both, so at least I got one of them.

"It's only when you get to the racetrack that you really start to develop that relationship, so I'm looking forward to that developing a little bit this season, but particularly next season."

Newey is attending this weekend’s F1 Monaco Grand Prix, his first time on the ground with Aston Martin.

Crash.net were exclusively told by Aston Martin boss Andy Cowell about the two key things that Newey has changed.

His main focus is on the F1 2026 regulations, and designing a car to dominate those.

Newey said about his new colleagues: "There's a lot of individually very, very good people. We just need to try to get them working together, perhaps in a slightly better organised way.

"That's simply a result of the roots of the team at Jordan, that became Force India, that became Racing Point, and was as such always a small but slightly over-performing team, to now in a very short space of time a very big team that the truth is has been underperforming this year."