Lance Stroll delivers fierce takedown of 'fake' F1

Lance Stroll has delivered an astonishing takedown of F1's current rules, believing them to be "fake" and describing F3 cars as "1000 times" more exciting.

In a scathing review of the racing product, Stroll felt F1 was "miles off" where he believed it should be and that "F1 was happy" with the situation as people were tuning in to watch grands prix regardless of driver concerns. 

Below are the Canadian's comments in full from media day ahead of the Miami Grand Prix. 

"All the part throttle stuff is just destroying the racing, so hopefully it is more normal to drive, and we don't think so much about the management and the lift and coast and all this stuff," Stroll began to media, including RacingNews365.

"But I think we're so far away from proper F1 cars and pushing flat out, without thinking about batteries and all this stuff, it is just kind of a band-aid solution.

"We are miles off where we should be, and during the break, I was randomly watching old races and the Monaco Historic, and I heard some early 2000s Ferraris and how good they sounded and how small and nimble they were. 

"I saw some onboards from the mid-2000s in the V10 era, and what it looks like versus now, you can hear the character of the cars, and just how much more intense and how much more exciting it looked back then, so it is a bit sad, but hopefully, we're heading back in that direction again. 

"I think it is so fundamentally flawed, but I'm not an engineer, but it is just sad that we're in this situation now, and I don't have all the answers. I drove other cars over the break, I tested some F3 cars, and it is like 1000 times more fun and better to drive because you have your right foot, you give what you want, and you get what you want.

"Even the weight of the car, sometimes like 550-650 kilos, is a lot nicer than 750, 800 plus, so things like that make the cars more fun to drive.

"Then the sound, everyone hears the sound of the V8, V10 era and is going like: 'Wow, that is amazing, that is F1 when you hear it' and now, de-rating into a corner, I'm downshifting going into a corner with no character or no noise. It is fake.

"F1 is a business, and they want to protect their business and make it look good, and we're drivers, and we know what it feels like to drive good cars.

"So there are two different perspectives on it, and people are watching the sport no matter what, and watching Netflix and turning on Formula 1, and so F1 is happy.

"But the drivers, the fans, the people that really know about racing, who know what it was like before, and the drivers who know what it is really like to drive really good, proper cars, there is no hiding behind the fact that right now, it is not as good as it can be."