Lance Stroll believes has made personal progress as a driver despite the “awful” performance of his Williams car in 2018.
Eighth in Baku and ninth at Monza are the only two points results the Canadian has to his name this season as the Grove-based squad has struggled with a flawed chassis.
Certainly, with the negatives outweighing the positives in terms of highlights, the 20-year-old didn’t hold back in his criticism of the FW41.
“The couple of races I scored points were good but I really had to work for it,” he was quoted by RaceFans.
“Generally the car hasn’t been there, it’s been terrible to drive. The performance just has been awful. That’s been frustrating but that’s how it is. I’ve digested it.”
Stroll particularly feels Williams’ problems have masked his own improvements in his second season on the grid.
“If I take the car out of the equation I believe I’ve improved well as a driver and I’ve matured a lot,” he claimed.
“I’ve had a few good qualifyings where I’ve managed to get the car into Q2 and Q3 in Monza which is a big deal for us as a team, even though the position’s far from ideal.
“And I’ve had a couple of good races scoring points. I believe that it’s still been a good year in that sense.”
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Next year, Stroll will step up to Force India after his father Lawrence bought the team mid-season and it appears to be a move that can’t come soon enough.
“Overall I expected much more from us as a team this year and from the car, we haven’t developed the car at all,” he claimed. “We have the same car that we had in Australia which is a bit of a shame.”