Smedley: Give Stroll six months to prove himself

Rob Smedley has told critics of rookie driver Lance Stroll to back off and give the teenager time to prove himself.

The head of vehicle performance at Williams Martini Racing Formula One said that the Canadian needed time to develop confidence in the car.

Stroll - son of billionaire fashion mogul Lawrence Stroll - had a tough start behind the steering wheel of the new FW40 in pre-season testing. He suffered several mishaps during the first four-day test, but then had a trouble-free time during the second week.

He set his best time of testing on the final day, clocking in at 1:20.335s. That compared to 1:19.420s recorded by his much more experienced team mate Felipe Massa.

But Smedley and the team were unconcerned by the large gap in performance between their two drivers.

"If Lance had driven in the same conditions as Felipe, he would have done a 1:19.6s," Smedley told Auto Motor und Sport. "That would be more than respectable.

Stroll aiming to keep calm and carry on in Australia

"The pressure on Lance is extremely high," Smedley added. "What he needs now is confidence,"

"He is only 18, everything is new, the cars are so fast and everyone is looking at him.

"He goes to Melbourne with only 180 minutes of preparation before qualifying," Smedley pointed out. "Melbourne will be tough enough for him: new track, limited practice and the walls are closer than in Barcelona.

"Give him half a year to familiarise," he added. "Only then can we form a judgement about him."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.