Williams 'excited' after Stroll 'annihilated' F3 championship

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Claire Williams says she is "really excited" to see how Lance Stroll performs for Williams after he "annihilated the F3 championship" in 2016.

18-year-old Stroll was finally confirmed as Felipe Massa's replacement on Thursday morning, with the Canadian set to partner Valtteri Bottas next season. Ahead of his debut Formula One year, deputy team principal Williams says Stroll's performance in winning this year's F3 title leaves her full of anticipation to see how he performs in F1.

"With Lance, he has proven his credentials, he deserves this seat in F1 next year," Williams said. "As a team we are notorious for bringing in young talent to F1 and I am really excited to see what Lance can do for the team.

"This year alone he has annihilated the F3 championship, he has won 14 of the 30 races, so nearly 50% of races he has won. Prior to that he was champion in the Toyota race series in New Zealand and the F4 championship as well. He truly deserves this seat and I am really excited to see what he can do next year."

And Williams says Stroll was the obvious candidate to replace Massa, despite his lack of experience heading into a season with new regulations.

"That was inevitably going to be something that was crucial for us going into the regulation change next year. Felipe has done a wonderful job for this team but it was his choice to retire, so when we knew that we had to bring in a second driver and we evaluated our options and Lance was the clear choice to make."

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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.