Stroll insists he is 'not' the Williams lead driver

Lance Stroll has insisted that he is not the lead driver of the Williams Formula One team as quite simply there is no lead driver, despite the fact that, even at the age of just 19, he remains the more experienced performer between himself and Sergey Sirotkin.

When Felipe Massa announced his retirement for the end of the 2017 campaign, Williams initiated a recruitment drive and eventually selected Sirotkin to partner Stroll.

Sirotkin may be older than Stroll, but the latter has more experience behind the wheel in F1. The Canadian, however, believes that this does not necessarily make him the "lead" driver in the team.

“Lead the team is maybe the wrong word,” Stroll assured.

“I have a year under my belt compared to Sergey but at the same time we’re all in it together.

“There’s not a lead driver and a second driver, it’s one team and we want to get the most out of the package that’s available.

“My job remains the same, regardless of who is on the other side of the garage.”

Stroll did not have a good time of it at testing in Barcelona as his best lap was still the slowest out of everyone on the Circuit de Catalunya, but he is not concerned about this and remains focused on preparing for the opening Grand Prix in Melbourne.

“I have a group of people I work with and we want to get the most out of our package. That’s the objective for this year just like it was for last year," Stroll continued.

“Our meetings are the same, everything’s the same. Of course we don’t have the most experienced line-up but there are some good people around us.

“There is a lot of experience around the engineering table in order to help us, so I believe we have a good team in place going into the season.”