F1: Stroll ‘on cloud nine’ ahead of Williams debut

Lance Stroll is still coming to terms with how successful his year has been after winning the European F3 championship and earning a Williams race seat.

The 18-year-old Canadian dominated the second half of the F3 season and was immediately linked with the vacancy at Williams following Felipe Massa's retirement. After wrapping up the F3 title, Stroll was confirmed as the new teammate to Valtteri Bottas in early November, and he admits he was not expecting to make such rapid progress in 2016.

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"I'm still on cloud nine," Stroll said. "It really has been an amazing year, beyond expectations, that's for sure. Coming into a year you can never expect that it's going to turn out the way it did for me this year. But we prepared very well last winter and came in ready.

"I knew that we would be competitive; it was my second season and I knew the team would be very good. They've won many championships before and I believed in the team I was working with. I just took it race by race, lap by lap, and in the second half of the season kicked it into second gear and it was really good."

With new aerodynamic regulations set to lead to quicker lap times, Stroll believes he needs to focus on the challenges of his debut F1 season as a whole, knowing he will be up against a highly-regarded teammate in Bottas.

"Next year we don't know if it will be five seconds faster because we still need to wait and see. I think that's the big question mark, but anyways it's going to be physical. I'm going to have to prepare myself as much as possible for that first race – but I think not only for the first race. It's a long season; it's not only about arriving at Melbourne and then everything being perfect for Melbourne, then there's other races that follow throughout the year.

"I think me being a rookie, I have a great team behind me who can teach me a lot, who have really good experience working with young drivers. I have a great benchmark as a teammate in Valtteri who will help me throughout the year and help me progress since he's proven to be a great talent in Formula 1.

"So all these things, like F3 I'll have to just take it race by race. Obviously throughout the winter I'm going to prepare myself as much as possible for that first race but also throughout the year. It's such a long season, there's so much to improve throughout the season that I'm just going to take it race by race."