02/06/2023
NEWS STORY
Fernando Alonso has leapt to the defence of his teammate - and employer's son - insisting that Lance Stroll has been "unlucky".
Six races in and while the Spaniard is third in the standings his team is just one point ahead of Mercedes with Ferrari also within striking distance.
Of the Silverstone-based outfit's 120 points, Alonso has contributed 93 (77%), while also out-qualifying his young teammate at every race thus far.
Indeed, other than DNFs in Jeddah and Monaco, Stroll's best result was in Australia where he finished fourth, as a result some are already saying that his lack of results is compromising the team and that if it was any other outfit he would be under intense pressure from management, think Red Bull.
However, Alonso, who has previously claimed that Stroll has championship winning potential, has leapt to the youngster's defence.
"I think Lance has been very, very unlucky the last two events," the Spaniard told reporters as the Spanish Grand Prix weekend got underway.
"He has provided the right feedback, info and strategy about everything," he added.
"So I really hope for him that he has a little more luck because I don't think that he's missing any pace. It's just opportunistic moments that were not on his side."
"It's luck," insisted Stroll, "things happen in racing and we had some tough weekends, we had our retirement in Jeddah.
"I think it's just how it goes. There's good weekends and bad weekends and like every other weekend I'm just coming into this one trying to get the most out of it."