To be fair, he was always on a hiding to nothing, some claiming he was too young, too inexperienced and (his Father) too wealthy for F1. Certainly, in many ways Lance Stroll hasn't been given an easy ride.

While he carried out his preparations in 2016 away from the media spotlight, this year his every move, his every incident, has been well documented. Indeed, like another former Williams driver, Pastor Maldonado, he has a spoof website dedicated to him, detailing when he last crashed.

The record books will show that three rounds into his rookie season, the youngster has completed just 30% of the racing laps, but the Williams driver remains philosophical.

"I have put it behind me," he tells the official F1 website, "what else can you do?

"Yes, it is frustrating," he continues, "but it's not in my hands. These three races were an accumulation of bad luck: a brake failure in Australia, some kind of racing incident in China, and on Sunday being torpedoed by Carlos (Sainz).

"Unlucky, all three incidents, but the tables will turn!"

Despite the patchy debut, team boss Claire Williams insists she is proud of what the 18-year-old has shown thus far.

"That is nice," he replies. "Yes, there have been some good moments in qualifying, but I am still watching and learning.

"It's not so much the difficulty of Formula One, but the difference of Formula One versus everything that I have done so far," he admits. "When you come here the tyres seem almost a closed book and you have to open it and learn to read it. Then, of course, you have to learn the little tricks of the trade, for example, what it takes to makes the tyres happy. And that is why a day like Tuesday (testing) is so important, when you are not limited on runs. It is working round to getting to the maximum with my capability as a racing driver."

Asked what he will take away from Bahrain, the conditions being unrepresentative of other events on the calendar, he replies: "Mileage, and learning to understand the tyres. These two things are absolutely paramount for me.

"As the temperatures here are really extreme you see where the limits of the tyres are," he continues, "that is a very interesting experience. When they are overheating, how they behave tells you quite a lot, especially for me who doesn't have much experience with F1 tyres, as the GP3 tyres forgive so much more and these tyres don't forgive anything!

"And the car itself, there is nothing you can compare these cars with. It's like nothing that you've ever been driving, so it is also much about the right technique... how to handle these cars right. They are real beasts!"

Of course, in teammate Felipe Massa, who has 253 GPs under his belt, he has a proven benchmark. Asked if his "little tricks of the trade" comment referred to the Brazilian veteran, he admits: "There is nothing compared to your own experiences, but of course I also look at what Felipe is doing, and use him as a reference by looking at his data."

Carlos Sainz was handed a three-place grid penalty for the incident on Sunday, but the teenager derives no satisfaction from the Spaniard's punishment.

"If I were in Carlos' position I would be frustrated with myself," he admits. "But in racing people make mistakes, that's part of the game. When I saw the video of the crash I thought to myself, 'Well, that's just one of those things!'"

A wise head on young shoulders?

"Surviving in F1 I would say is 90 percent mental capability," he says. "When you are not mentally able to get over things you are in the wrong sport. And wouldn't it be ridiculous were I to give up after only a few races?"

Ominously, next up is Sochi, of which he has no experience.

"I have never been to the track and have never seen the surface there. I will sit down with my engineers to discuss how to approach that very different race.

"That's all I can say for now. What I really want is the end of that streak of poor luck, then I think many things are possible."

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by RDFox, 19/04/2017 14:48

"I admit that, amongst my friends, I've dubbed him "Lance 'Zsolt Baumgartner' Stroll," in honor of the man who made "Somebody's gone off--" "IT'S ZSOLT!" a running gag in the US telecasts of his one season in the circus... but honestly, that's not really fair; I only pin the blame for one of his crashes (including preseason testing) on him. China was a rookie mistake; everyone tears up a few cars in their first year by making such mistakes--it's how you learn enough to stop making rookie mistakes. Otherwise, he's just had pure bad luck.

The kid can drive; the question remains whether his luck will change enough to let him continue, or if he's simply snakebit and destined to be another promising young driver thrown onto the Formula One scrapheap."

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2. Posted by LukeP, 19/04/2017 12:04

"He hasn't had an easy time of it has he! Needs a clean race so we can find out what he's actually capable of, and whether he deserves a Maldonado-like website... seems a bit harsh so far, when 2 of his non-finishes were definitely not his fault (China is more debateable, but even that was not wreckless driving, just inexperience)"

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Stroll: An accumulation of bad luck

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