Why Williams has backed the right horse

Lance Stroll is now a Formula 1 driver, and there are a lot of people who don't like that. Perception has been that the extraordinary wealth of his father, Tommy Hilfiger tycoon Lawrence Stroll, has allowed him to buy his success.

But while the largesse of Stroll Sr has allowed his son unprecedented resources through the junior ranks of motorsport, the guy in the cockpit has had to deliver the goods. This he has done.

Importantly, Lance Stroll is not a rich dilettante taking up a space in F1 that should by rights go to one of his lesser-funded peers. He has seen off talented opposition to win the Formula 3 European Championship, and he is a bright, personable, hard-working racing driver.

"I'm very impressed with Lance on three or four points," says Prema Powerteam driver coach Nuno Pinto, who has worked with Stroll since his first tests in a Formula Renault 2.0 car in October 2013.

"The first is I keep forgetting he's 16 or 17 years old, because he's really a smart kid. He's an intelligent human being, and I speak with him like he's my age [the pepper shades in Pinto's beard betray that the Portuguese is fast approaching 40].

"And on the other hand I like that he's a hard worker, and we all know that sometimes kids like him who have a different background than others do not take this sport so seriously.

"And what's always impressed me is that going back two years ago [when Stroll won the Italian Formula 4 Championship in 2014], when there was not the minimum age for F1, there was not the superlicence points, nothing like that, even back then he never had the approach of 'I will be in F1 no matter what'.

"His approach from the first moment was 'I want to do good, I want to improve, and I want to win, not to prove to anyone else but to prove to myself that I'm good enough'. He always said to me 'I want to win F4, but more important I want to win F3', and that was really a surprise to me because without the need for superlicence points he could think 'I could buy my seat in F1'.

"But he never wanted to arrive in F1 like that - he wanted to prove to himself, and at first to the team, that he was as good as any other driver we had, and that's why he worked harder than anybody else before.

"Another thing that impressed me and I like is that he's not obsessed with F1 - maybe we are more than him! He wants to get there, to prove that he is capable of it, but he's enjoying doing other races and enjoys other parts of motorsport.

"He enjoyed doing the Daytona 24 Hours [Stroll shared a Chip Ganassi Racing Daytona Prototype in the 2016 race] and he said this was a cool race. He enjoys the challenging places, and he is saying 'I want to do the 24 Hours of Le Mans one day, I want to do the Indy 500 if it's not too dangerous'. I like that in a new-generation driver because most of them only see F1 and nothing else."

It should, by the way, be noted here that, according to Prema insiders, Stroll's skipping of the forthcoming Macau Grand Prix disappointed no one more than the man himself - but such is the way of F1.

Stroll himself believes that his two years in F3 will leave him just as prepared for F1 as his immediate predecessors such as Max Verstappen and Esteban Ocon.

"If the opportunity comes you've got to take it," he said in September. "There will still be things to learn in F1. I don't think I'll be coming out of this championship complete as a driver and 100% ready.

"I'm still very young and there's still so much ahead of me to learn, but I think in terms of driving a car with a lot of downforce, being quick on one qually lap, racing - even though we don't see a lot of battling sometimes - F3 is at a really high level."

One of the most notable aspects of Stroll's 2016 season has been his ability to perform in conditions that, however much preparation you do, rely on instinct and improvisation.

It's all very well completing mammoth testing programmes on track and in the sim, and relying on top engineering and development - then, when you put it on pole in dry conditions, a relatively large percentage is down to the preparation that comes from funding.

But Stroll drove exceptionally well in a damp-but-drying qualifying session at Paul Ricard, a streaming-wet qualifying at the Pau street circuit, and another wet one at Spa, comfortably putting his Prema Dallara-Mercedes on pole each time. In other words, these were conditions that you just can't prepare for.

"It's always been a strong characteristic of mine to be good in mixed conditions and the wet," he says. "This year I just understand the car more, I'm a lot more confident behind the wheel and I know where to position my car, how much speed to carry in the corner, how early I can get on the throttle without losing traction, getting big moments in the corners. It's just experience and time in the car.

"F3 is such a high level and the car's really difficult to drive, because there's so much grip, there's so much downforce, and to use all that grip and downforce is not an easy thing to do, even in the wet.

"It's a car with so much potential and so much grip and not much power, and that's the tricky part - you have to be on that fine line of right on the limit but not overdrive it, so it's a car that you need time in.

"Some drivers get it quicker than others, but I really focused on maximising the car's potential, like Felix [Rosenqvist, who taught Stroll so much in 2015 in F3] was doing last year, and I think I'm at that level this year."

Stroll (pictured below with Pinto) has begun a testing programme in a 2014-spec Williams-Mercedes FW36. "We're starting very slowly," he says. "It's not like we're ready to jump into the next grands prix!

"I had Silverstone where it was like a shakedown day with about 20 laps, and then I was in Hungary and I did another 60 on the first day and 40 on the second day. So... getting into it, you know?

"The car is so impressive to drive. Of course it's a 2014 so it's not exactly where the 2016 is today, and it's going to be nothing to do with next year's car.

"Obviously it's a massive jump from F3 - in some ways, but not every way. Like I said, F3's a really good car, especially slower and middle-speed corners - mechanically it's great, but also aero-wise because you're able to carry a lot of speed in high-speed corners.

"F1 has more aero but there's also more weight, so it's different, and the power is really incredible - you just never stop going! In F3 you arrive at 260kph and then you kind of slow down there, but F1 if you keep going in a straight line you'll end up hitting 400 eventually!

"So it's really impressive and, with the speed you arrive at each corner, you're in one corner and then before you know it you're already at the next and you've got to be prepared to turn in.

"But it's everything in proportion. So the power goes up but then the grip goes up so... it's another car, there's other challenges to it, but it's very manageable to drive.

"It's just about getting in that rhythm, the same as when I came from F4 to F3 it was about getting in that rhythm, learning the car, and then eventually being on the limit of that car. So again it's a new process, a new learning experience."

Learning is something Stroll has done a lot of over the past three years with Prema, a team that arguably has F1 levels of skill across its management and engineering. Its most recent graduate from F3 to make it to F1 is 2014 champion Esteban Ocon, and coach Pinto - who also worked with the Frenchman - believes Stroll is just as deserving of his place.

"Yes I do, because Lance has won all the championships he has entered," he says. "Right from the first moment we tested Ocon we were all impressed, his speed was massive. He always had it and he kept it all year.

"What I like about Lance is he's still progressing - I rate him now as fast as any of our past champions [who also include Rosenqvist, Raffaele Marciello in 2013, Daniel Juncadella in '12 and Roberto Merhi in '11].

"A lot of times we look at his pole from a circuit and he's the same level as Felix and Esteban in terms of speed. But he hasn't reached the plateau yet. Every week he's getting better and he's also very young.

"So while the other two of our last champions [Rosenqvist and Ocon] we have no doubt about their speed and where they are, Lance is still getting better. What he was three years ago and what he is now, he is so much better."

The one question still unanswered regards Stroll's racecraft. He got involved in high-profile accidents fairly early in his rookie F3 season, and this year there has been controversy over apparent 'cooperation' in races from his team-mates.

Not that Stroll needed it because, even if you readjust the points as if these instances never happened, he would still have been crowned F3 champion by the time he left the penultimate round at Imola.

"We all saw Lance make mistakes last year, caused by his will and his anxiety to prove that he could win a race because of the speed he had," says Pinto. "And he did a couple of very visible mistakes, but then, in the second half of the year, no mistakes.

"And this year, if you analyse the whole year, he has never been into race control. So, very consistent, no mistakes, no late-braking-touch-somebody like it can happen with anyone who is still very young.

"Let's see now, because the racing will be different to F3 - F3 is much about speed and qualifying and starts and first lap, and it [F1] is a bit early to judge. But what is different in F1 is that the overtaking is more fake. It's hard for me to judge what is a great racer in F1."

Stroll himself is ready for the challenge. "I feel I'm pretty complete as a driver compared to where I used to be," he says.

"But I don't know exactly [how he'll perform] because there's still a lot I haven't learnt about F1 and how it works, and how the cars are to drive, so there's still a lot to discover."

The same goes for fans of F1, who may just discover an element of surprise that this young Canadian is not out of place at all.