Felipe Massa’s departure from Williams F1 made no difference to his ex-teammate Lance Stroll as he did not receive any ‘guidance’ from the Brazilian.
Massa came out of retirement as a last-minute replacement for Valtteri Bottas last year and retired once again in 2017 after he did not get any assurance from Williams on the race seat.
The Brazilian has been replaced by Russian Sergey Sirotkin, Renault’s ex-reserve driver. The new addition makes Williams one of the least experienced line-up for 2018.
When asked if he would miss having an experienced driver in the team to go for suggestions, Stroll said it would not make any difference as he got no help from Massa.
“I don’t think I had any guidance from him last year, whatsoever,” Stroll told the sports site Motorsport. “He was a teammate like any other.
“He was busy trying to drive as fast as he could, and I was trying to drive as fast as I could. That was it. There was nothing more to it than that.”
Early last year, Massa claimed working with Stroll was like the mentoring he got from Michael Schumacher at the beginning of his F1 career.
Stroll continued: “I don’t know why people seem to think there was a coach or a mentor thing going on. There wasn’t; it was just him doing his job and me doing mine, and whoever did it better finished ahead.
“Whether my teammate is someone with 15 years’ experience or someone of one year’s experience, my approach doesn’t change.” – Lance Stroll
Robert Kubica bagged the development and reserve duty role at Williams for next season. The Canadian driver believes Kubica will be a great asset to the team due to his experience.
“Robert can be a big help for sure,” said Stroll. “Felipe was a good help in that way of helping the team develop with the new regulations, and Robert can definitely help us.
“He seemed to have a good understanding of what the problems were with the car [in Abu Dhabi testing], we got some feedback from the Renault he drove in Hungary.
“So that was good, I can think we can use him and integrate in the team to help us get further up the grid.”
