Black_Flag_11 wrote:pokerman wrote:Black_Flag_11 wrote:Mayox wrote:SmoothRide wrote:
Stroll is a good driver. I think he may surprise a few people in a decent car.
Cmon, we all know he would have never been in F1 without his Daddy money. And those flying laps on the fastest compound from 2018 during 2019 tyre tests looks like a desperate try to show the world it's otherwise

No we don't know that. He dominated F3 in 2016 and while it was certainly money that got him the Williams drive for 2017 he almost certainly would have gone to F2 without it.
Whether he would have got from F2 to F1 isnt certain but his F3 results do indicate it would be very possible for him to do so.
It's not even that unusual to go straight from F3 to F1 after a season like he had in 2016. Many drivers skip a level and graduate straight from F3 or F3 equivalents. Bottas, Verstappen, Kvyat and Ocon all did and that's just off the top of my head. Often after less convincing campaigns in those lower series.
GP3 was a higher level than F3 that's why the likes of Ocon, Leclerc and Russell went from F3 to GP3, Ocon, Bottas and Kvyat all went from GP3 to F1.
Half a step up at most IMO. Stroll also put in a similar (perhaps slightly better) F3 than Ocon, who also ended up in F1.
His pre F1 results in no way indicate it would be weird for him to be in F1 now anyway even if his journey hadn't been accelerated by Williams looking for money and his dad having a lot to spare.
Ocon won F3 as a rookie and then had to prove himself further in GP3 which he also won as a rookie, Ocon had no money and if the results had dried up then he was finished, F3 alone did not get him into F1.
With Stroll the target was simply to get 40 F1 super license points then straight into F1, to facilitate this his father bought Prema the team that Ocon had just won the F3 title with, and hired Felix Rosenqvist to mentor his son. Rosenqvist was a F3 veteran who got beat by the rookie Ocon the year before, Rosenqvist won the title whilst Stroll finished 5th.
The following year teammates were hired to assist Stroll to win the title, also they terminated their Ferrari F1 junior contract and signed up with the Williams F1 team, the paid for deal being that Williams developed parts for Stroll's F3 car only plus he had an extensive testing schedule with a year old F1 Williams car at circuits all around the year with a private tutor, Gary Paffett.
Stroll also bought their own exclusive F3 test simulator which was better than Williams own F1 test simulator.
When the F3 title was won then it was straight to F1 without the need to prove himself at a higher level like Ocon had to do, the comparisons between Stroll and Ocon couldn't be more different.