Racing Point team boss Otmar Szafnauer claims Lance Stroll has already proven himself to be as fast as Esteban Ocon during his brief time.
The Canadian made the move from Williams to the squad bought by his father Lawrence Stroll this past summer, donning the pink overalls for the first time in the post-season test in Abu Dhabi last month.
While there has been much frustration over the circumstances surrounding Stroll’s move, with Ocon off the Formula 1 grid next year and now Mercedes reserve driver, the Racing Point chief insists he has the talent.
“Lance absolutely loved his time in the car, said the car can do the things he wants a car to do which is good, we were duly impressed with Lance,” Szafnauer told F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast.
“We were already impressed with him when he ran in the simulator. He was on the pace very quickly, up to Esteban’s level in the simulator.
“We were just hoping the pace that he showed in the simulator would translate onto the race track and it did. He was very quick on track too.”
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Despite the strong first impression, Szafnauer does admit Stroll has a lot of areas for improvement.
“So we’ve got some good potential there in Lance, we’ll work with him to hopefully teach him some things we know about how to drive the tyre, how to preserve it and how to make it go quick and last over the stints and we’ll do that with him, help him qualify better too,” he explained.
“But he brings some great skills, he’s quick, he usually does a great job at the start and over the first lap, he usually makes up places, so we look forward to working with him.”