Max Verstappen (P4, 12 pts): 9.5/10
A year ago, Max Verstappen ran around Monaco looking for places to have costly accidents. Nothing tells the tale of the 21-year-old's increasing maturity and talent than the observation that he never even looked likely to make a rash move or mistake in 2019 and that he looked to have everything under control. In fact his steely demeanour this weekend was both wonderful and chilling to behold! Although limited running time on Thursday afternoon due to radiator repairs left him a little off the pace, there was no question that he was going to be a significant factor in qualifying, and he was duly faster than Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel to line up 'best of the rest' behind the all-Mercedes front row. A brilliant pit stop under the safety car by the Red Bull mechanics put him alongside Valtteri Bottas on the way out of pit lane, and he picked up second place which he used with merciless application to harry Lewis Hamilton for the rest of the afternoon. The pair even made contact in the final laps, but whereas the old Max would have seen red and done something to put one or both cars out of the race at this point, the newly upgraded Max 2.0 knew when to pull back just as well as when to push. Unfortunately that earlier pit stop clash saddled him with a penalty that cost him the second place that was his by rights; in fact for many fans watching the real winner of Monaco this week should have been Verstappen. We can well understand why.
