{"id":290173,"date":"2023-09-08T00:34:22","date_gmt":"2023-09-08T00:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/allmysportsnews.com\/?p=290173"},"modified":"2023-09-08T00:34:22","modified_gmt":"2023-09-08T00:34:22","slug":"jonathan-mcevoy-driver-holding-aston-back-is-the-owners-son","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/allmysportsnews.com\/racing\/f1\/jonathan-mcevoy-driver-holding-aston-back-is-the-owners-son\/","title":{"rendered":"JONATHAN McEVOY: Driver holding Aston back is the owner&apos;s son"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>It&#8217;s an inconvenient truth for Aston Martin, but the driver holding them back is the owner&#8217;s son &#8211; and 750 staff could lose out on big bonuses<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Lance Stroll&#8217;s form has fallen away in contrast to team-mate Fernando Alonso<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Staff receive bonuses for finishing in top three in constructors\u2019 championship\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Stroll&#8217;s failure to score in Italy condemned Aston Martin to slip to fourth place\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Poor Lance Stroll. That\u2019s not a phrase you hear often, seeing as he is the privileged son of a billionaire father who effectively bought a Formula One team for him.<\/p>\n<p>But at this moment the 24-year-old Canadian is very much a prisoner in a golden cage. That is because his form is conspicuously wonky. He lies ninth in the drivers\u2019 standings, with 47 points, compared to team-mate Fernando Alonso\u2019s third, with 170.<\/p>\n<p>More damningly, Alonso has spent just one lap outside the top 10 this season, Stroll 276 laps. Alonso\u2019s average grid position is 5.6th, Stroll\u2019s 11th.<\/p>\n<p>Stroll\u2019s failure to score at last weekend\u2019s Italian Grand Prix condemned Aston Martin to slip to fourth place in the constructors\u2019 championship as Ferrari moved up. This has painful financial implications. Aston, like most teams, pay serious bonuses to their staff for finishing third or higher but precious little if they finish lower.<\/p>\n<p>Suddenly, the 750 staff at their newly glistening factory at Silverstone\u2019s gates are set to lose out on the dividend they could well have anticipated when the team started the season so brightly, as nearest pursuers to the all-conquering Red Bull.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/07\/23\/75191241-0-image-m-74_1694127291449.jpg\" height=\"425\" width=\"306\"><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/07\/23\/75191235-0-image-m-72_1694127281973.jpg\" height=\"425\" width=\"306\"><\/p>\n<p>Lance Stroll&#8217;s form (L) has fallen away in marked contrast to team-mate Fernando Alonso (R)<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/07\/23\/75191341-0-image-a-75_1694127467340.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>F1 teams pay big bonuses to staff for finishing in top three in the constructors\u2019 championship<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, Stroll performed reasonably well in that promising early phase, notably taking fourth place in Australia. That result suggested, as I have long believed, that Lance is not at all the worst driver on the grid, even if he is enabled by his father Lawrence\u2019s clothes-flogging riches and ownership of the team.<\/p>\n<p>But his form has fallen away markedly, the relentlessness and consistency of Alonso\u2019s driving no doubt having seeped inside the younger man\u2019s head. One source close to the team told me of Stroll: \u2018He\u2019s increasingly lazy, listless, miserable and surly.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>A clip on social media of the drivers leaving a Grand Prix Drivers\u2019 Association meeting at the weekend showed him lost in his own thoughts. He looked downcast, in contrast to his peers who chatted animatedly among themselves.<\/p>\n<p>So what to do? The best and simplest solution is for Stroll to buck up. But has he got it within himself to do so, in terms of hunger as much as talent? And could he ever live up to the bar set by Alonso, for whom racing is a way of life, an obsession even, in a way that it isn\u2019t for Lance?<\/p>\n<p>The next best outcome, and possibly the most realistic, is for Lance to call time on himself and make way for someone better equipped to propel Aston to the front (though that may not be the easiest conversation to have with his old man, who has spared nothing in bankrolling Lance\u2019s journey into Formula One).<\/p>\n<p>Unless one of the Strolls decides Lance\u2019s position is untenable, nobody among the team\u2019s hierarchy will pull the trigger. Take team principal Mike Krack\u2019s declaration at the Italian Grand Prix: \u2018We will be fine next year with the two drivers.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Well, he would say that, wouldn\u2019t he? Saying anything else is a sackable offence. Stroll rules the roost, rightly as the owner \u2014 everybody is scared to death of him.<\/p>\n<p>Under Stroll is Martin Whitmarsh, a chief executive with a suitably grand office next to Stroll\u2019s even bigger one. A cynic might say, as has been suggested to me, that Whitmarsh appointed Krack because he would pose no threat to him; rather, he can dominate him.<\/p>\n<p>Krack, a competent engineer and a decent man, is team principal in name only. The idea of him standing up to Whitmarsh, let alone Stroll, is laughable.<\/p>\n<p>It remains an open question as to whether Whitmarsh can extract the best from the excellent new senior engineering team established by former boss Otmar Szafnauer, the bedrock on which early-season success was built. The signs are not good. Aston are falling away rather than marching on as the campaign lengthens.<\/p>\n<p>The Lance Stroll conundrum is an emblem of the decline. It needs to be arrested. But one big question then enters the arena. What future does Lawrence Stroll envisage for an Aston Martin sans his son?<\/p>\n<h2>Toto tried to get me fired twice!<\/h2>\n<p>I wonder whether Toto Wolff regrets his graceless remarks on Max Verstappen achieving a 10th straight win \u2014 a first in 73 years of Formula One.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Completely irrelevant,\u2019 sneered the Mercedes boss, compounding remarks he had uttered on Sky, dismissing the landmark as a stat \u2018for Wikipedia, and nobody reads that\u2019.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/08\/00\/75054879-0-Damon_Hill_has_hit_out_at_Toto_Wolff_for_dismissing_Max_Verstapp-a-78_1694127649004.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Mercedes chief Toto Wolff should be praising Max Verstappen for setting a new record<\/p>\n<p>The Austrian likes to portray himself as an honourable fellow, the very essence of reasonableness and decency. But, of course, he\u2019s as ruthless as the next F1 executive. Times one thousand.<\/p>\n<p>I know this from personal experience \u2014 he twice tried to get me fired.<\/p>\n<p>It is just that Wolff usually manages to dress his remarks in sheep\u2019s clothing. But it is seemingly easier to present yourself as a picture of sportsmanship in triumph than in defeat. Whatever Kipling may say. If I were Wolff\u2019s PR adviser \u2014 a post he has strangely never offered me \u2014 I\u2019d suggest he looks again at his begrudging remarks and does himself as well as Verstappen a good turn by finding a tribute appropriate to match a historic first.<\/p>\n<h2>Sigh&#8230; no budget cap either<\/h2>\n<p>Formula One has exhibited a genius knack over the years for turning up something worth writing about as the on-track action has slowed.<\/p>\n<p>So it was with a journalist\u2019s sigh that I received news that no team had transgressed last season\u2019s budget cap.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/09\/07\/23\/75073571-0-All_10_Formula_One_teams_have_been_given_compliance_certificates-a-63_1694126626153.jpg\" height=\"397\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>All 10 F1 teams have been given compliance certificates by the sport&#8217;s governing body<\/p>\n<p>Hats off, though, to the FIA for the thoroughness with which they went about their auditing.<\/p>\n<p>It was long argued that a budget cap was ungovernable. I am not naive enough to think other than every permitted trick is being pulled by all teams ingenious enough to devise ways of doing so, but for now the process is working well.<\/p>\n<p>The downside is that performance disparities are set in aspic.<\/p>\n<p>Imagine if Mercedes could spend, spend, spend; try this, try that. Same for Ferrari. They can\u2019t, which is the major downside of a cost cap.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/formulaone\/article-12494205\/JONTHAN-McEVOY-inconvenient-truth-Aston-Martin-driver-holding-owners-son-750-staff-lose-big-bonuses.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s an inconvenient truth for Aston Martin, but the driver holding them back is the owner&#8217;s son &#8211; and 750 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290172,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>JONATHAN McEVOY: Driver holding Aston back is the owner&amp;apos;s son - All My Sports News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/allmysportsnews.com\/racing\/f1\/jonathan-mcevoy-driver-holding-aston-back-is-the-owners-son\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"JONATHAN McEVOY: Driver holding Aston back is the owner&amp;apos;s son - All My Sports News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It&#8217;s an inconvenient truth for Aston Martin, but the driver holding them back is the owner&#8217;s son &#8211; 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