Is Fernando Alonso Lance Stroll’s next victim?

Fernando Alonso will partner Lance Stroll at Aston Martin next year.

Those well versed in the meme world will be aware of the grim reaper knocking on doors and taking names on a corridor filled with some prolific characters.

He gets to the final door, and is just about to knock to complete the set. In Formula 1, the grim reaper has been painted as Lance Stroll, and his final victim? Fernando Alonso.

Since joining Formula 1 in 2017, Stroll has partnered four drivers with a combination of Williams and Aston Martin, who were previously known as Racing Point.

The Canadian was awarded a seat with the latter by his billionaire father Lawrence when he bought the struggling Force India name from Vijay Mallya, who had been facing legal trouble.

It saved the jobs of many workers at the team, but it ended up costing Esteban Ocon his seat ahead of the 2019 season when the now 23-year-old headed over to the Silverstone-based side.

There is no doubt that Stroll is a very capable racing driver, and the money put behind him by his father can perhaps cloud that at times.

READ: ‘This guy is a meme’: Sebastian Vettel fumes at Lance Stroll after dangerous driving

Stroll’s first team-mate when he joined Williams straight from Formula 3, and he was set to race alongside Valtteri Bottas before the shock retirement of Nico Rosberg.

Bottas was promoted to Mercedes as a result, and Felipe Massa, who himself had retired from the sport, agreed to stay for one more season.

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The Brazilian out-qualified Stroll 17 times over the course of the season that also saw Paul di Resta race for Williams when Massa was forced to miss the Hungarian Grand Prix due to illness.

Stroll would score the team’s only podium finish of the year in Baku, but ended up behind in the championship as Massa waved goodbye to the pinnacle of motorsport for the second time in as many years.

Sergey Sirotkin was the now 41-year-old’s replacement, and the Russian out-qualified Stroll on 12 occasions in 2018, but scored one point to Stroll’s six, leaving him rooted to the bottom of the Drivers’ Standings.

Sirotkin was dropped, and he was one of five drivers to depart that year, along with Brendon Hartley, Stoffel Vandoorne, Alonso and Marcus Ericsson, who leads the IndyCar Championship in 2022.

Over the course of the two seasons they spent together, Perez out-qualified Stroll 27 times in 35 races, and comfortably ended ahead in the Drivers’ Standings in both 2019 and 2020.

Stroll also partnered Nico Hulkenberg in both Silverstone races in the latter of those seasons after Perez became the first driver to come down with the COVID-19 virus.

The Mexican was dropped at the end of 2020 despite winning the Sakhir Grand Prix as Sebastian Vettel came in to replace him.

Perez got his move to Red Bull last year to race alongside Max Verstappen, who himself has dispatched team-mates such as Daniel Ricciardo, Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon at the Austrian side.

Vettel has qualified in front in 22 of the 33 races he has spent with Stroll, and he has managed the team’s only podium in the last two years when he finished second in Baku last year.

The four-time champion is set to retire at the end of this season, and Alonso will step in to replace him when he leaves Alpine at the end of the year.