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After getting a tour through the team garage three days before the Canadian Grand Prix, I asked Graeme Hackland, the Chief Information Officer of Williams Martini Racing, about Montreal driver Lance Stroll.

“The kid can drive,” said Hackland, who has been involved in Formula One for 20 years.

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Hackland added that the 18-year-old Stroll just needed a confidence boost after failing to earn a point in the drivers’ standings in his first six races, finishing only two of them. Hackland noted there would be no better place for that boost to come than on Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

Stroll would finish ninth at the Canadian Grand Prix to earn his first two points and celebrated with fans at the track afterward while waving a Canadian flag. It was almost as if the kid had won the race.

Fuelled with some added confidence, Stroll finished third at last weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix to become the youngest F1 rookie with a podium finish and the first Canadian since Jacques Villeneuve in 2001.

You would think Villeneuve — who won the F1 drivers’ championship in 1997 — would be happy to see a young Canadian enjoying some success at the pinnacle of auto racing, but the 46-year-old has been one of Stroll’s biggest critics. After the Canadian Grand Prix, Villeneuve told autoweek.com: “Results speak for themselves. … It is one of the worst rookie performances in the history of Formula 1.”