Valtteri Bottas (P5, 10 pts): 7.5/10
After winning last year's race at Abu Dhabi, Valtteri Bottas had good cause to hope that history would repeat itself in 2018 and that he would finally get his first win of the season. His hopes were boosted by a strong qualifying session in which he landed second place as part of the seventh Mercedes front-row lock-out of the year. He then inherited the lead of the race itself when Lewis Hamilton made an opportunistic early pit stop during a Virtual Safety Car, but when the order reset itself later in the race Bottas found himself back in second place. And then things went really wrong for the Finn, brake and tyre issues landing him in all sorts of trouble. Sebastian Vettel, Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo were all able to get past him in the final 20 laps, until a 'free' second pit stop and fresh set of tyres steadied the ship and saw Bottas to fifth place. It was less than he'd been hoping for - which is pretty much the theme of his entire 2018 campaign.
