If you know absolutely nothing about Formula 1, you need to understand this: There are only 22 F1 driver seats in the entire world. Not 22 per country. Not 22 per team. Twenty-two TOTAL. There are 11 teams, each with only two full-time drivers.
And somehow, one of those incredibly rare seats has belonged to the son of a billionaire team owner for nearly a decade — despite never winning a single F1 race and repeatedly performing worse than the other driver on his own team.
His father, Lawrence Stroll, is a fashion mogul worth an estimated $3.7 billion who helped grow Michael Kors. In 2018, Lawrence led a group of investors that bought an F1 team. His son has now driven for that same organization since 2019.
And please keep in mind that this kind of setup is veryyyy unusual in a sport with so few available seats, especially when you aren’t consistently winning races or championships. F1 teams are constantly swapping, dropping, and replacing drivers, so staying with the same organization for eight straight seasons is a pretty big deal.
Now, to be completely fair, Formula 1 has never exactly been a poor kid’s sport, with most drivers starting out in go-karts as literal children. From there, they can spend years climbing through junior categories like Formula 4, Formula 3, and Formula 2 before they even have a chance of reaching F1. And that entire journey can require millions of dollars in financial backing. 😮💨
Butttt, some drivers’ families have gone through the complete opposite just to give their kids a chance. Famously, Lewis Hamilton’s father once worked three jobs to help pay for his racing career. And Esteban Ocon’s parents literally sold their home and moved into a caravan to fund his karting.
Now, Lance did not originally enter Formula 1 driving for his father. He started his F1 career with Williams in 2017 at only 18-years-old. And honestly, his rookie season showed real promise as he earned a podium and finished the year with 40 championship points.
But then came 2018. His team, Williams, had an awful season and finished last among all F1 teams. Lance scored only six points, while that year’s champion, Lewis Hamilton, scored 408. Obviously, that is not a completely fair comparison because Hamilton had one of the best cars and Lance had one of the worst. But after all the excitement surrounding his rookie year, Lance’s career wasn’t exactly soaring.
And then his billionaire father swooped in. Midway through the 2018 season, a struggling F1 team, previously known as Force India, entered administration due to serious financial problems. But a group of investors led by Lawrence Stroll bought the team and rescued it.
Almost immediately, people expected Lance to leave Williams and join his father’s newly acquired team. But there was just one problem. The team already had two drivers. One was Sergio Perez, an experienced driver who finished eighth in the 2018 championship. And the other was 22-year-old Esteban Ocon. And yes, that is the same Esteban Ocon whose parents sold their home and lived in a caravan to help him reach Formula 1.
Ocon was considered a promising rising young talent. And, for extra context, he finished 12th in the 2018 F1 championship with 49 points, while Lance finished 18th with six. But when Lawrence Stroll’s group bought Ocon’s team, Ocon lost his seat, and Lance replaced him. And since then, fans have had a lot to say:
Ocon spent the entire following year without a full-time F1 seat, and he later spoke about crying alone in a parking lot during that incredibly difficult period of his career.
And this is the part that makes F1 fans lose their minds: The seats in this sport are constantly moving. Drivers usually get swapped, dropped, replaced, promoted, demoted, or suddenly pushed aside the second someone better becomes available. And while some drivers can stay with the same team for a long time, they’re drivers like Max Verstappen, not Lance Stroll.
So yeah, that’s generally how sports work: If you win, you stay. But that logic doesn’t seem to apply to Lance. His first teammate on his father’s team was Sergio Perez, who scored more championship points than he did. Perez left. Lance stayed. Then Lance raced alongside four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel, who scored more points than Lance in both of their seasons together. Vettel retired. Lance stayed. Then, two-time world champion Fernando Alonso joined Aston Martin and has scored more points than Lance in every full season they’ve completed together.
Although Alonso is still Lance’s teammate in 2026, the larger pattern is hard to miss: Every full-time teammate Lance has had since joining his father’s F1 organization has outscored him. But somehow, Lance is the one driver whose seat has never changed.
Being a billionaire’s son and the ultimate F1 “nepo baby” was always bound to piss some fans off. But one season in particular made the situation almost impossible to ignore: In 2025, Lance and Fernando Alonso both raced for Aston Martin. Before each main race, F1 drivers compete in “qualifying,” where their speed determines their starting positions on the big day. Basically, the faster you are, the closer to the front you start.
And because Lance and Fernando drive for the same team, their results are much easier to compare. There were 24 Grand Prix weekends in 2025, and Fernando earned the better qualifying position all 24 times. The final score was literally 24-0…
Fernando earned a better starting position than Lance at every single Grand Prix weekend that year. But Aston Martin still brought Lance back for 2026!! For comparison, Daniel Ricciardo lost his McLaren seat after his teammate Lando Norris beat him 20-2 in qualifying in 2022. And Ricciardo had also won eight F1 races. The difference, of course, is that Daniel Ricciardo’s father didn’t own McLaren.
And this is why the Lance Stroll debate has grown so much bigger over the years. I don’t hate the guy, but it is pretty hard to prove he deserves one of those seats more than every other driver waiting for a chance in Formula 2, working as a reserve driver, or trying to fight their way back onto the F1 grid. So, yeah, that just makes fans even more pissed…
And while some people keep arguing that Aston Martin needs to wake up and replace Lance, the team has proved time and time again that it has no plans to do that. In 2020, when Racing Point (the team that later became Aston Martin) wanted to hire four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel, it meant either Lance or Sergio Perez had to go… Formula 1’s own website analyzed the decision purely on performance and called it an “easy call”: KEEP PEREZ. LET LANCE GO.
But I think you can guess what actually happened… On top of that, Aston Martin extended Lance’s contract for “2025 and beyond,” without publicly announcing a specific end date. Formula 1’s own 2020 analysis went so far as to say that Lawrence owning the team “ensures his son has a seat.”
And I think that’s why simply calling Lance a “nepo baby” almost makes this story sound less deep than it actually is. If he were dominating races and clearly deserved one of the 22 spots, I honestly don’t think most people would care nearly as much about that fact that his father is a billionaire and team owner. But who knows? Maybe Lance would actually still be in Formula 1 even if Lawrence Stroll had never stepped in 🤷♀️. And, to be fair, some fans see it that way too:
And now that you’re in on the drama, I want to know if you think Lance actually deserves the backlash, or if this is just how the world works, and everyone would take the same opportunity if they could? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
