Lance Stroll believes he still has a long way to go to realise his potential as he nears the end of his second full season in Formula 1.

The 19-year-old joined the sport straight from Formula Three last year and was often some way off the pace of his experienced team mate Felipe Massa, particularly in qualifying. Stroll says he has made progress since then but is still “far from reaching my potential as a driver.”

“I have so much to learn,” he said. “I gained so much experience every weekend, every time I get in the car, I just still feel like I’m learning. “So there’s definitely a lot more to come.

“At the same time when I reflect on where I was last year I think I’ve came a long way as a driver just with seat time and experience. And I’m still only 19 so I think there’s a lot more to come.”

Stroll says much of the progress he has made is being masked by the shortcomings of his FW41.

“Unfortunately it’s been a challenging year with the car and the team,” he said. “So I haven’t really been able to demonstrate that [progress] to a certain extent.

“But in many ways I think I have been a lot better in that area. I feel like I’m a lot more on top of the car. From a position point of view it doesn’t show that because of where we are as a team but I definitely do feel like I’m getting a lot more out of the car.

“I’m just much more on top of things on the race, in qualifying, strategically, my starts, all those aspects I believe that I have improved on all those aspects.

“I think now it’s just about carrying on improving on those details and building myself as a driver because racing, you never stop learning, just like in any sport there’s always something that can be improved and that’s what I’m working on everyday to improve myself in all areas.”

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2018 F1 season