Lance Stroll describes Williams’ 2018 car as “terrible” and says it hasn’t made any progress with the FW41 since the first race of the season.

Asked in Brazil to reflect on his season so far, Stroll said: “The couple of races I scored points were good. But I really had to work for it.

“Generally the car hasn’t been there, it’s been terrible to drive. The performance just has been awful. That’s been frustrating but that’s how it is. I’ve digested it.”

The 20-year-old, who is in his second season with the team, is expected to move to Force India next year as a replacement for Esteban Ocon. Stroll isn’t confirming his plans yet, but said he’s “ready to wrap up” his difficult season.

“It’s been a very challenging year with the car. It just hasn’t been performing at all. So I’m ready to turn the page and move on.”

Despite having scored just six points to his 40 last year, Stroll believes he has made progress in his second full season of F1.

“If I take the car out of the equation I believe I’ve improved well as a driver and I’ve matured a lot. I’ve had a few good qualifyings where I’ve managed to get the car into Q2 and Q3 in Monza which is a big deal for us as a team, even though the position’s far from ideal.

“And I’ve had a couple of good races scoring points. I believe that it’s still been a good year in that sense.”

Although the team brought a mid-season upgrade package at the Hockenheimring, which chief technical officer Paddy Lowe described as a “big step” at the time, Stroll doesn’t believe any progress has been made with the FW41 since the first round.

“Overall I expected much more from us as a team this year and from the car, we haven’t developed the car at all. We have the same car that we had in Australia which is a bit of a shame.”

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2018 F1 season