Aston Martin owner Lawrence Stroll has invested hundreds of millions, if not billions, in making the Silverstone-based team a championship challenger. However, the investments haven’t yet yielded the results, and following the reported gap to the rivals at the Bahrain F1 test, the Aston Martin owner’s dejected expressions led to the fans reacting on the social media platform X.
Lawrence Stroll acquired the Force India F1 team in the late 2010s, followed by a rebranding to Aston Martin ahead of the 2021 season. With Stroll’s vision to make the team a championship contender, he’s invested millions in a new state-of-the-art factory and wind tunnel.
Multiple high-profile signings were also made, including the likes of Adrian Newey, Enrico Cardile, and Andy Cowell. An exclusive partnership with Honda was signed starting in 2026, so that the team has the flexibility of asking the manufacturer to package the engine differently to suit the aerodynamic needs.
As the AMR26 broke cover in Barcelona, the aggressive design caught everyone’s eyes. However, the delays due to the assembly issues meant the team couldn’t get any real running done at the Shakedown. Coming to Bahrain, great things were expected of the AMR26, but the recent reports suggest that the Silverstone-based team is miles behind the rivals.
Lance Stroll came out and suggested that the car is at least four seconds slower than the rivals. Reports of Fernando Alonso throwing his gloves after getting out of the car on Day 2 came out, and reports of Honda not being able to perform at the same level as the rivals also circled the paddock.
Amid all this, a video of Lawrence Stroll exiting the circuit after Day 2 went viral on social media as the team owner looked seemingly despondent. Fans took to social media and reacted to the same, as they wrote,
“He looks like he’s going to throw up”
Another commented, “To be fair he kinda always looks like that”
“Hopefully that’s the “I just fired my son” look”, commented another
Some fans pointed at Lance Stroll’s comments, while others mentioned Lawrence Stroll’s appearance in the Epstein files, as they wrote,
“Took him 4-5 seconds longer to get into that car”
Another mentioned, “that’s the look of being caught in the epstein files”
“It’s almost like his names were on the famous files,” wrote a user
Lawrence Stroll’s son, Lance Stroll’s glum verdict about the Aston Martin AMR26
The AMR26 came to a halt after just five laps on the team’s first outing in Barcelona with Lance Stroll in the seat. The Canadian took to the circuit of Day 1 of the Bahrain test and was able to complete 36 laps as Honda noticed a data anomaly.
Lawrence Stroll’s son came out and gave a glum verdict on the AMR26 as he said,
“I don’t know. I mean, right now we look like we’re four seconds off the top teams, four and a half seconds. It’s impossible to know what fuel loads and everything people are running, but, yeah, now we need to try and find four seconds of performance, so we’ll see.”
Lance Stroll was over five seconds slower than the fastest lap time of Lando Norris on Day 1 of the preseason F1 test in Bahrain.
Edited by Pranay Bhagi
