As the truism goes, the thing with first impressions is that you only get to make one. The same naturally goes for debut races (and opening sentences). Only Mercedes and Haas retained both their drivers for 2019 (didn't hurt them, did it?) -- elsewhere on the grid we had the kind of personnel changes that were crying out for a video montage of the new drivers with their names and personalized numbers overlaid on it with splashy graphics.
Now the first race of the 2019 has been confined to the record books, ne'er more to haunt us in our fancy nor in our wakefulness, the question remains: who had the best debut? Who's made a bad first impression? And who's (already) in deep trouble? Our three genuine rookies, scrumpy king Lando Norris, Alexander Albon Jovi and "The Terrier" George Russell (all Brits, kinda) all finished outside the points so there's no objective way of saying who did best, which is a fancy way of saying none of them did that well. Or did they?
As for the guys with new teams, or indeed with old teams, only Lance Stroll managed to finish ahead of an established teammate. Does that matter? Daniel Ricciardo and Carlos Sainz Jr both broke down, or rather their cars did. Do they get a free pass?
There's a poll so you don't even need to express yourselves verbally. No doubt someone will, so please comment and over-analyse below. Feel free to complain that I've listed Robert Kubica as a rookie.