Lance Stroll has shared his insights into Aston Martin’s staggering slump in performance and what their expectations are for the remainder of 2025 and the upcoming 2026 F1 season.
Despite challenging for podiums regularly as the second force in the first third of 2023, the Silverstone-based team finished the season as the best of the rest. They finished fifth in the standings in 2024 as well, scoring 186 fewer points than they did the previous year.
The start to Aston Martin’s 2025 campaign has not been promising either. They currently sit seventh in the championship table with only 10 points under their belt.
With new regulations coming into effect in 2026, their brand-new works partnership with Honda, and Adrian Newey focused entirely on next year’s car, the British marque now faces the difficult task of salvaging their 2025 season without undermining their ambitious target for 2026.
Aston Martin currently relying on luck to score points
Speaking in a print media session during the F1 Saudi Arabian GP weekend, Lance Stroll reflected on Aston Martin’s inconsistent season so far and noted how the car and the team haven’t been competitive enough.
Emphasising how tight the competition is for the final points-paying positions, the Canadian driver admitted that they are currently relying on other teams’ misfortunes to finish in the top ten.
“Well, I think the last couple of events we’ve just been lacking competitiveness. As a team, we haven’t been fast enough; the cars haven’t been fast enough.
“Even the first part of the season, when you look at Australia, before all the carnage we were going to finish 12th or 13th or something like that. Same thing in China, I think we finished 12th on the road, but there were a few penalties so we finished 9th on paper and got a couple of points.
“I think we just need to be more competitive to really finish concrete those results in the top ten every week. Right now we’re depending on circumstance, things to happen, have a perfect Saturday, a perfect Sunday, and others screw it up to get something out of a weekend for points.
“We just need to keep doing our performance.”
Stroll claims AMR25 doesn’t have any real strengths
Asked if the Bahrain International Circuit exacerbated some of the AMR25’s shortcomings, Lance Stroll acknowledged the car’s weakness in the low-speed corners.
“I hope so, yeah. I hope it [Bahrain GP] was the worst experience we have all year.”
Clarifying that the car isn’t easier to drive in comparison to previous seasons, the 26-year-old also identified straight-line braking as the singular area where the AMR25 has displayed some potential.
“Not particularly. I would love to say yes [the car is easier to drive], but there’s still definitely a lot of areas to work on.
“I don’t think there’s any real strengths.
“We’re not the quickest car in a high-speed corner; we’re not the best car in low-speed traction. I think maybe straight-line braking, we’re quite okay. Turn 1 Bahrain was our best corner, so yeah. Straight-line braking, all that.”
Aston Martin focused on improving the car in 2025 without compromising 2026
With regard to how tricky the recovery plan is in terms of overall cost, Lance Stroll revealed that Aston Martin seek to take a step forward in 2025 without jeopardising their objectives for the 2026 F1 season.
“Yeah, we’re doing what we can for this year. That’s still keeping in mind next year, of course.
“We don’t want to stand still this year and throw away the season and just accept that we’re the tenth team or whatever. We want to bring performance and make the car faster, but we have to balance that out with focusing on next year.
“We’re still doing what we can. We’ll see what we can do.”
Asked if they are willing to regard 2025 as a transition year, given their noticeable lack of performance at present, the Canadian referred to the fluctuating fortunes in F1 and reiterated that Aston Martin are intent on pushing as long as possible to finish the ongoing season on a better note.
“No, I think we want to have some good races this year. We’re not satisfied with where we are at the moment and there’s still 20 races or whatever, 19 races to go. So we’re going to do what we can to try and make the car more competitive.
“In Bahrain, 24 months ago, we were 3rd and 6th and we finished 18th and 19th last weekend. No one’s that big on that. We just want to be in a much better spot.
“I think the game has changed a lot. We finished 9th and 10th in Bahrain last year too at a similar time. This year we finished 18th and 19th.
“I think Formula 1 is changing every day and no one’s standing still.”
