Quebecer Lance Stroll has been working with a new race engineer since the Japanese Formula 1 Grand Prix, a transition that his Aston Martin team has prepared smoothly due to the importance of this role during race weekends.
Ben Mitchell, who succeeded Brad Joyce in 2021, was replaced by Andrew Vizard. It is now up to him and his small team to sort and convey the information gathered by the hundreds of team employees to Stroll’s ear when he is on the track.
“I’m going to miss your beautiful voice, Ben,” Stroll said on the radio after finishing sixth in Australia, after more than two years together.
Discussing the move in Montreal as part of the Canadian Grand Prix, Stroll said the move had been “relaxed” and that he is very happy with the relationship of trust he is building with Vizard.
“This relationship is super important, particularly to give the right information during the race,” said Stroll in the paddocks of the Gilles-Villeneuve circuit. As a driver, to make changes to the car, it’s really important to have confidence in the engineer to try to help with what’s wrong and the adjustments every weekend. »
To ensure no missteps with a sudden change, Vizard and Mitchell worked together during the first events of the season. Vizard, who previously served as a race engineer with Williams, joined Aston Martin in 2023 knowing he would eventually take on the same role with Stroll.
The objective of this change, at Aston Martin, is to allow engineers to progress within the team. Mitchell has indeed been appointed head of performance optimization.
“We want to give our employees opportunities to grow within the team,” explained Tom McCullough, director of performance at Aston Martin. Ben has moved to head a department that helps us during race weekends. He works in mission control with a team of engineers. »
For McCullough, it was essential to allow Vizard to observe and understand the dynamic between Mitchell and Stroll before replacing him.
“It’s very important to establish a good working relationship between the engineer and the driver, because the information obtained by 850 people working in the team passes to the driver through the race engineer. So, we have to give the right information at the right time to the engineer, and the engineer has to build the relationship with the driver and the small team around him to get the best out of the driver. »
As head of race engineers, McCullough does not rule out a rotation in that position in the future.
“It’s good to have stability with the engineers, but at the same time you also benefit from changing engineers,” argued McCullough, who himself was Nico Hulkenberg’s race engineer at Williams .
“The way we see things going forward, with 24 or 25 races a season, we’re juggling the idea of rotation, the idea of not always having the same engineer. We could see Ben back on the pit wall a few times,” he summed up.
Aston Martin will look to continue its momentum at the Spanish Grand Prix this weekend. Fernando Alonso and Stroll finished sixth and seventh, respectively, in Montreal to collect a team-high 14 points this season.
