Lance Stroll (P4, 12 pts): 8/10
There's been so much attention on Fernando Alonso's return to success in the first races of 2023 that it's been easy to overlook Lance Stroll, but the Canadian had been in good form and proved just how good the Aston Martin package is this year as a whole, and not just all down to Alonso's singular talents behind the wheel. While he had a subdued time in practice on Friday he was in the top ten in FP3 and duly progressed to the final round of qualifying to pick up sixth place on the grid for Sunday's race. He was unexpectedly ambushed by Alex Albon in the opening corner but had good fortune with the timing of the red flag to make his pit stop, and after that tucked in to sixth running between Carlos Sainz and Pierre Gasly ahead, and Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez behind, all of them part of a DRS train that was being held up by Lewis Hamilton preserving his tyres in second place. With Gasly wiped out in the last but one restart and Sainz penalised for spinning Alonso, Stroll emerged from the afternoon with a very decent fourth place. Many had expected Stroll to be blown away and embarrassed by having Alonso as his team mate this year: so far, that's absolutely not happening.
Fernando Alonso (P3, 15 pts): 9/10
Three races into 2023 and Fernando Alonso has notched up three podium positions in third place. You certainly can't knock the guy's consistency! Moreover he looks like a kid in a candy store: he might be the oldest driver on the grid but he's projecting more energy and enthusiasm than rookies almost half his age. Moreover there's a renewed swagger and confident to him, to the point where - when he topped the times at the end of Friday's practice sessions - the look on his face was more "of course, what do you expect?" rather than "wow!". He wasn't so happy to lose out to both Mercedes drivers in qualifying, and will have been distinctly irked to be ambushed by Carlos Sainz at the start of the race itself, but being out on track on Sunday is Alonso's happy place and once the pit stops were out of the way he was back in third and a podium never looked in doubt. He tried everything to upgrade third to second by piling the pressure on Lewis Hamilton but in the end he recognised that his fellow former world champion was never going to break or bend. There was a scare when he was tipped into a spin at the penultimate restart, but his appeals for a grid reset were heard by race control and he was put back in the top three for the finish, after another roller coaster ride.
