Formula 1: Lance Stroll should switch to IndyCar

Lance Stroll will likely drive for Force India in the 2019 Formula 1 season, but he should not rule out switching to IndyCar in the future.

Lance Stroll entered Formula 1 as a full-time driver in the 2017 season having won championships in each of the three series that he had competed in from the 2014 season through the 2016.

Stroll won the 2014 Italian Formula 4 Championship, the 2015 Toyota Racing Series championship and the 2016 Formula 3 Championship. He test drove for Scuderia Ferrari in Formula 1 during the 2015 season, and he did so for Williams Martini Racing during the 2016 season.

But despite Stroll’s success, the reason why he landed his first career full-time Formula 1 ride with Williams in the 2017 season is simple: his father, Canadian billionaire investor Lawrence Stroll, spent $80 million to get him that ride.

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In many cases in motorsports, money means more than talent. So while Stroll clearly has the talent required to be a Formula 1 driver, his father’s wallet is the reason why he is competing in the sport.

While it is likely that Stroll will move from Williams, the team that sit in 10th (last) place in the constructor championship by a sizable margin through the first 13 races of the 21-race 2018 season, to Racing Point Force India, the mid-pack team purchased by a consortium led by his father, for the 2019 season, continuing to land rides as a result of his father’s wallet in the most prestigious racing series in the world is not going to do the 19-year-old Canadian any good when the sport’s top-tier teams such as Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull Racing consider with whom to replace their current drivers.

Force India may be the most competitive team that Stroll can possibly drive for, and the only reason he will likely get the opportunity to do so is because of the fact that his father bought the team. While they are a solid mid-pack team, they have next to no chance of winning races, and even that is being extremely generous.

There are other very talented drivers (okay, the entire rest of the field), including Esteban Ocon, the driver who Stroll will likely replace at Force India next season, whose fathers haven’t bought Formula 1 teams just to give their sons more competitive rides in the sport. These are the drivers who the sport’s top-tier teams are going to focus on when it comes time to replace one or more of their current drivers.

Stroll, no matter how talented he is — and he is very talented — will likely not be in that discussion as one of those drivers at any point in the near future because of how he got to where he is.

That’s why he should consider a switch to IndyCar.

Stroll clearly isn’t competing in Formula 1 for the money. He has access to pretty much all the funds he will ever need to have a successful racing career, and that has been proven by his father’s willingness to spend millions and millions of dollars on him just so he can drive a noncompetitive car.

Stroll’s father could most definitely fund a team, likely a multi-car team, in IndyCar, and Stroll would be far more competitive than he is in Formula 1. Instead of spending boatloads of money running a mid-pack team so that his son can shoot for top six finishes each and every race, he could allow his son compete for wins, and he could do so by spending far less money than he is currently spending.

Could Stroll really compete for wins in IndyCar? Probably. After all, Formula 1 is the only series in which he has competed as a professional driver and not won a championship. Again, his talent his undeniable.

With all signs pointing to two-time Formula 1 champion Fernando Alonso competing in IndyCar next season, it would not be surprising to see more Formula 1 drivers competing in America’s top open-wheel racing series in the future.

Several Formula 1 drivers, including Max Verstappen, Kevin Magnussen, Jolyon Palmer and even four-time champion Lewis Hamilton have already commented about potentially doing so at some point in their racing careers.

With Stroll being in the situation he is in, why should he rule it out?

This is a similar yet still very different situation to the situation that Haas team owner Gene Haas is in. Haas is spending boatloads of money to field a mid-pack team, the lone America team, in Formula 1, while he could be spending far less money to win in IndyCar like he has done in the NASCAR Cup Series.

The difference is that Haas isn’t spending this money to help out a son, or any relative for that matter, whereas that is the sole reason why Stroll’s father is spending so much money. Because of this, he should do so in a way that will actually help his son be competitive in a top-tier racing series.

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Should Lance Stroll consider switching from Formula 1 to IndyCar at some point in his racing career, or will he eventually work his way up to land himself a ride with one of the top-tier Formula 1 teams?