F1 driver now admits he must ‘improve’ as teammate ‘was just quicker’ in 2023

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Aston Martin driver Lance Stroll admits Fernando Alonso was ‘just quicker’ than him during the 2023 Formula 1 season but the Canadian has ‘ideas’ on where to improve.

Last year was hardly the campaign that Stroll would have wanted after Alonso signed for the team to replace Sebastian Vettel. The 25-year-old did not beat the 42-year-old in any of the head-to-heads. He also scored 132 fewer points than the Spaniard in Aston Martin’s AMR23.

Alonso beat Stroll comprehensively across the board, en route to the two-time F1 champion claiming P4 in the drivers’ standings. He won their head-to-head battle for Grand Prix results 18-4 and qualifying 19-3. He further secured eight podiums with Stroll’s best finish just a P4.

Fernando Alonso comprehensively beat Lance Stroll as teammates at Aston Martin

Sprint events also went in Alonso’s favour with the Oviedo native beating the Montreal-born racer 4-2 and 5-1 in the Shootouts. Additionally, three of Alonso’s eight podiums from Grand Prix returned runners-up medals. He also only finished one Grand Prix outside of the points.

Stroll, meanwhile, failed to score points in six of the 18 Grand Prix that he finished. He also did not race at the Singapore GP after withdrawing from the event after a high-speed crash in qualifying. Alonso finished all but two races over the 22 Grand Prix in the 2023 F1 season.

Damage to his floor edge caused by the track surface forced Aston Martin to retire Alonso at the United States GP. Damage from running over debris also saw Alonso retire at the Mexico City GP, where Stroll bowed out after contact with Stake F1 Team’s Valtteri Bottas on Lap 66.

As Stroll completed more than 90% of the Mexico City GP, it did not count toward one of the Aston Martin driver’s retirements. He retired in Saudi Arabia due to a car failure, in Monaco after hitting the barriers twice in two corners and in Japan as his rear wing started to fall off.

Lance Stroll now admits he must ‘improve’ but the 2023 F1 season ‘did not go our way’

Stroll notes how ‘misfortune’ played its part is his record against Alonso in their first year as teammates at Aston Martin. He also started 2023 still recovering from surgery after breaking several bones in a cycling crash. But Stroll admits Alonso was simply ‘just quicker’ than him.

“[I lacked] some speed last year,” Stroll has now conceded whilst comparing himself in 2023 to Alonso’s year, via Autosport. “He was just quicker. So, I have some ideas on where to work on [and] some things that I want to improve on, for sure, in that regard.

“Also, I don’t like to use the word luck, but I think we had a lot of misfortune last year and that kind of made things more challenging. When we were fighting for good positions last year, there were a lot of races where we had technical issues. Things just didn’t go our way.”