Lance Strulovitch, better know as Lance Stroll, was born October 29th 1998. He drives for the Aston Martin Formula One Team, competing under the Canadian flag. He was the Italian F4 Drivers Champion in 2014, Toyota Racing Series Champion in 2015 and he won the 2016 FIA European Formula 3 Drivers Championship. He was also a member of the Ferrari Drivers Academy from 2010 to 2015. In 2017 he joined the Williams F1 team and took his first podium at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. In 2019, after two years at the back of the pack with Williams, Stroll replaced Esteban Ocon at Racing Point, which was essentially the Force India team under new ownership. At the 2020 Turkish Grand Prix under wet qualifying conditions, Lance took his first pole position and became the first Canadian driver to do so since Jaques Villeneuve took pole at the European Grand Prix in 1997. In 2021, Racing Point was rebranded as Aston Martin when Lance’s father, Lawrence Stroll bought a 16.7% stake in Aston Martin. A long time racing fan and sponsor, Lawrence was looking to rebuild a mighty legend. How serious was he? Well, a new 400,000 square foot factory with a wind tunnel went operational in 2023 on a forty acre site just opposite the Silverstone track in the United Kingdom.
Lance was born in Montreal, Quebec to billionaire businessman Lawrence Stroll and Claire-Anne Callens, a Belgian fashion designer. He has an older sister named Chloe who is pursuing a career in singing. Lance’s father made his mark in the fashion industry by acquiring majority stakes in Tommy Hilfiger and Michael Kors and taking both companies to the next level and beyond. From the year 2000 until August of 2022, Lawrence also owned a Canadian racing circuit known as Circuit Monte-Tremblant where a young Lance got his start as a six-year-old driving his go-kart through cones set up in the parking lot. From there, Lance started to enter local karting competitions in Quebec, where he won several championships and later expanded his horizons to compete in other North American series. When Lance was twelve the entire family moved to Geneva, Switzerland to pursue his racing career, and it wasn’t long before he was winning races in the junior categories and getting noticed by Formula One teams as a member of the Ferrari Driving Academy. In 2016, however, he left the Ferrari Academy to become a test driver for Williams F1 while he was still competing in the Formula 3 championship, which he won.
Many would say that Lance owes his success to his father. Lawrence has raced in the Ferrari Challenge and other series as well as being a Formula One fan for decades. He worked with lotus in the early nineties when they were sponsored by Tommy Hilfiger. He also worked with Ferrari and Michael Schumacher in 1998 when Hilfiger sponsored them. Together, he and his son are fulfilling both of their dreams. To help them get there, Lawrence sold his stake in Tommy Hilfiger and Michael Kors in 2014 and bought a stake in the Prema racing team, who Lance won his Formula 3 title with. Before Lance got his drivers seat at Williams, Lawrence injected the team with eighty million dollars. Before Lance went to Racing Point, Lawrence saw an opportunity and bought the team while it was in bankruptcy, later transforming it into Aston Martin. His goal is for Aston to be winning races and competing for championships by 2025, and there’s no doubt Lance is after the same thing. But can he deliver? Lance’s teammates have mostly been older, more experienced drivers who have outperformed him. 2023 was no different, with two-time world champion Fernando Alonso joining the team and driving superbly. Fernando is a good benchmark for Lance to prove that he’s in Formula One on his own merits and not solely because of his father. Every driver on the grid has had some form of sponsorship to help get them where they are. Lance’s sponsor just happens to be his dad. It still takes an incredible amount of talent and hard work to compete in Formula One. Money alone merely grants a person the opportunity to try. Together, Lance and his father are looking to create a legacy that will stand the test of time.