Alexander Albon (Collision, P14): 6/10
There's no question that Alex Albon is already faring better in his new role at Williams than his team mate Nicholas Latifi, who is clearly going backwards when not crashing into the barriers. Albon was quicker than Latifi in two of the three practice sessions (the Canadian edged him by half a tenth in FP2) and duly finished qualifying in P17 - just behind Lewis Hamilton and ahead of Aston Martin super-sub Nico Hulkenberg. But the race was not a good one for Albon, who sank to the back of the field after Latifi crashed out. He did get ahead of Hulkenberg and Guanyu Zhou again in the second half of the race, but then tried to take a bite out of Lance Stroll which put both drivers out of the race with three laps to go. The stewards were in no doubt that the incident was ALbon's fault and handed him a grid drop for Melbourne, which pretty much decides who will be starting at the back next time out. An unwelcome messy end for Albon, who needs to settle down and learn to make better judgment calls in future.
Lance Stroll (P13): 6.5/10
What is it about Lance Stroll? It's almost like his Aston Martin has a built-in cloaking device, because he can go for whole race weekends without being picked up on anyone's radar. Part of that is because of the subdued nature of the AMR22 which is looking very mediocre so far, although there's still time to improve. Stroll didn't trouble the top ten at any point in practice and ended up qualifying in 15th place, which translated to 13th on the grid after Mick Schumacher's withdrawal and Daniel Ricciardo's grid penalty. Guanyu Zhou's wheel-spin horror show at the start gifted Stroll another spot but it was soon taken away by Lewis Hamilton commencing his comeback attempt, and the timing of Stroll's first pit stop didn't help him at all and instead dropping the Aston to 16th behind Zhou. Stroll then got stuck behind his substitute team mate Nico Hulkenberg. Late pit stops, multiple retirements and a Virtual Safety Car boosted him back to ninth only to be quickly picked off by Kevin Magnussen and Lewis Hamilton, before Alex Albon came calling and made contact in turn 1 with three laps remaining. "That idiot divebombed me!" Stroll fumed later. At least he was able to soldier on (Albon couldn't) but he crossed the line a lap down in last place, which is an unfair representation of his solid if strangely anonymous night's work.
