Although Lance Stroll is still a very young driver, he already has four years of Formula 1 behind him and can be defined as an experienced driver, even if in a sport like this, one never stops learning, and having a four-time world champion by your side can only help you grow professionally and improve from race to race.

Otmar Szafnauer, Aston Martin's Team Principal, explained how Sebastian Vettel's presence and support were crucial, not just for the Canadian driver, but for the entire team and the new Aston Martin management:

“He’s learned from Seb how to approach a weekend,” he said.

“We’ve learned from Seb. We’ve changed the engineering structure slightly to help both drivers, including Lance, but we have changed internally how we run things, that was brought to us by Seb and Lance has benefitted from that.

“He [Stroll] has learned and he’s grown, and he’s young.  He’s still learning, but he’s supremely talented. He’s got great car control. Loves driving. And the rest of it just comes with experience. Some of the stuff you can shortcut.”

“Lance did a great job in Qatar, didn’t put a foot wrong from the start of the race,” - said Szafnauer  - “Towards the end, he had both Ferraris breathing down his neck, two good drivers at Ferrari, in the Ferraris. He held them off brilliantly. He knew exactly what to do on every lap to be able to hold them back and hold position.

“They weren’t much quicker than us. Lance, yeah, he didn’t put a foot wrong. That’s very impressive, to have all that pressure. Towards the end of the race, you probably don’t know, but we’re asking him to lift and coast to save a bit of fuel. So not only did he have the pressure from the Ferraris, he also couldn’t go as fast as he normally would because he was fuel saving. And he did it brilliantly.”

Aston Martin ended the constructors' championship in seventh position, with only seventy-seven points collected by both drivers, a big disappointment for everyone, as the English team was expected to be strong in the 2021 season after a breakthrough 2020.

But there is still optimism for next year.

“I think you know as a team we’ve learnt on what we have to work on, our strengths and weaknesses,” - Stroll said - “Going into next year it’s a completely different set of regulations, so I think it’s a very big opportunity for all the teams to come with something new, with something more competitive.

“We’ll see how next year plays out, and I’m really looking forward to it, I think it is a new opportunity, a new set of regulations is always exciting for the drivers, and also for the teams.