The silly season for 2019 is raging on strongly in Formula 1 as the latest speculations link Williams’ Lance Stroll to Force India.
It is being reported that Stroll is looking for a seat elsewhere after Williams’ poor run this season, with Force India emerging as the strong contender. The Canadian though has already denied any move for now.
For Force India though, the speculation is that Sergio Perez will move on to either Sauber or Haas and at the same time Esteban Ocon has been linked to a Renault drive – team boss Vijay Mallya said last weekend that he wants to retain his line-up for 2019.
Williams, on the other hand is keen to keep the youngster within the team structure in 2019, with Paddy Lowe adding that they are not worried about the speculations as he feels that it is a normal thing to happen within the media.
“I’m not worrying about it,” said Lowe. “It’s that type of time in the season when there are lots of stories around the media about drivers doing this or that. As far as I’m concerned we’re working very much in the present with Lance.
“It’s true he hasn’t committed for next year. We haven’t committed to him either, so that is an open point. Where it lands, who knows. We would love to stay with Lance and that’s our assumption at the moment.”
Williams has scored only four points this season with Stroll in Baku as they languish at the bottom of the table. The car has been particularly difficult to drive for both the Canadian and his teammate Sergey Sirotkin.
The team has been fighting to bring upgrades and performance, but it has not an easy process. One of the reasons for Williams not able to recover quickly is their relatively young driver line-up – Stroll being in his second season, while Sirotkin is in his rookie year.
Though Lowe admitted that the feedback from them isn’t to the level of a world championship-winning driver, but the team is happy with the progress with them – adding that the car isn’t quick enough as well to test their abilities on the whole.
“The better driver, the better [it is for a team],” he said. “Everybody would love to have a championship-winning driver in their car but that’s not possible. You have to work your way up to that on merit.
“The merit that they would want to drive for you and the merit that you can afford to pay their salaries, so, we can’t all have championship-winning drivers. We have a driver line-up, we’re very happy with the two young guys, they’re very talented.
“Yes, their feedback doesn’t come from such a great level of experience as championship winners would provide but I don’t think they’re the problem we have at the moment. The car isn’t quick enough.
“There’s a lot of things to do to get a much better platform to work with, and that’s what we’re doing.” Should Stroll move out of the team, another rumour says it could open up for Mercedes to put Formula 2 driver George Russell in the cockpit.