Daniel Ricciardo (P11): 8/10
It had been a rocky start to 2019 for Daniel Ricciardo, who took a little while to settle in to his new position at Renault after so many years at Red Bull. But now he has, the Australian is looking increasingly happy and confident with how things are going and with the improvements shown in the engine department. He was faster than team mate Nico Hulkenberg by a tenth or so throughout practice, and when it came to qualifying it was Ricciardo who made it through to Q3 and secured himself a top ten grid slot. He lost two spots at the start of the race by braking too early but thereafter made solid progress for the rest of the afternoon, and took opportunistic advantage of Lando Norris' hydraulic problems on the last lap to finish in seventh place. Unfortunately the race stewards took a dim view of his methods and found a way to impose two separate five second penalties for essentially the same incident, in order to arrive at an outcome they considered appropriate - harshly denying Ricciardo some well-earned points.
