2024 F1 mid-season driver rankings #18: Lance Stroll · RaceFans

When Lance Stroll was announced to be signing a contract extension with Aston Martin, it came to the surprise of absolutely nobody.

While the 25-year-old’s performances over the last two seasons have hardly been those of a driver deserving a seat in one of the top five teams on the grid, it does not seem to matter. Almost certainly, the fact that Stroll’s father is the chairman of Aston Martin provides him unparalleled job security.

Entering his second season alongside his much older, much more experienced and, seemingly, much faster team mate Fernando Alonso, Stroll did not enjoy a particularly strong start to the season. After kicking off his campaign in solid style with a point in tenth behind Alonso in Bahrain, Stroll hit the inside wall at the fast left-hand kink of turn 22 twice over the Jeddah weekend, putting an unceremonious end to time in Saudi Arabia while Alonso finished fifth.

Japan was another poor round. He was eliminated from Q1 while Alonso qualified in fifth and was simply far slower than his team mate on Sunday. In a race without damage or any major setbacks out of his control, Stroll finished a minute behind Alonso in the same car. Things did not improve next time out in China either, as once again he was not on the level of Alonso over the weekend, failing to record a point but managing to earn a penalty for running into Daniel Ricciardo under Safety Car.

While Stroll’s worst performances came at the start of the season, he also continued to frustrate in Monaco, where he punctured his own tyre by clipping the barrier at the harbour chicane. He was then lucky to avoid a serious penalty for an unacceptable incident of aggressive driving towards Lewis Hamilton in practice in Barcelona.

But it would be wrong to suggest it has been all bad for Stroll so far in 2024. In fact, his weekends at Imola and the Red Bull Ring were genuinely strong, making excellent work of his strategy in Imola to climb into the points from 13th with a long opening stint before showing up Alonso again in Austria with another solid weekend despite Aston Martin being well out of contention for points. His trio of rounds in Austria, Britain and Hungary were all decent and he appeared to be carrying genuine momentum into the summer break, only for him to end up being the only driver in the field to crash around the wet Spa-Francorchamps over the Belgian Grand Prix weekend.

If…