Lawrence Stroll: This is a rude awakening

After a season of learning in 2017 with veteran Felipe Massa in the Williams garage next to him, this year young Stroll is now partnered with rookie Sergey Sirotkin - the pair not helped by the fact that the former world champion team have provided them with a lemon of a car - perhaps the worst on the grid.

Stroll senior said in an interview with Motorsport Network, "I believe in Williams, I believe in the team. Clearly, they got it wrong so far. I do believe this is a rude awakening, and hopefully, it will bring the best out of the people, and they'll fix it."

"It's sure not as quick as we'd like, and not as quick as they'd like either, but we're not going anywhere else. Obviously, the car clearly isn't where we hoped and wanted to be, it's quite a way off. It's pretty apparent to the eye what's wrong with the car."

"I gather everyone is trying their best, there's a great sense of urgency in the team. It's not that they don't recognise the problem, everybody does. A blind person could see the problem. I know they're working hard to fix it."

Behind the scenes Stroll senior has been lobbying to align Williams more closely with Mercedes, "I'm not a board member, I don't own one share of this team, I'm simply Lance's father. Whatever they can do to make the car go better, I'm in favour of, let's put it that way."

Stroll junior has struggled with the car and has not been shy to let the paddock know, while his father continues to believe, "I think his performance, based on the car he has, has been phenomenal. He can't qualify the car much better than where he qualifies it, but he does amazingly well on that opening lap."

"He's beaten his team-mate all five times, and beaten a lot of people that the car is not capable of beating. So from a performance point of view with Lance, we couldn't be happier."

"Obviously we'd like a better car to be at the front of the grid, but with the equipment he has, I don't think he could be doing a better job," added Stroll senior.