Sergio Perez (P9, 2 pts): 8/10
It really wasn't looking like a good weekend for Racing Point, as we've already seen from the story of Lance Stroll's race. Sergio Perez pretty much opted out of FP1 due to the wet conditions, so it wasn't much of a surprise when he finished the day 15th fastest in FP2 and 17th in final practice on Saturday morning. But Perez is an experienced campaigner and he found a way to avoid first round elimination in qualifying to start from 15th on Sunday. He lost a place to the recovering Carlos Sainz early in the race and then bided his time before opting for an early stop for fresh medium tyres on lap 17 which set him up nicely to make up multiple positions when the cars ahead made their own pit stops. The result of this put him up into the top ten, and while his second stop on lap 45 briefly pushed him back down to 15th he was soon moving forward again, helped by the first safety car that allowed him to unlap himself. He lost out to Daniel Ricciardo at the first restart following a safety car for Valtteri Bottas' retirement and suffered a further loss to Lando Norris, but he then made a pass of his own on Sergio Perez to put him back up to 12th. The exit of the two Ferraris on lap 66 finally promoted him back into the points, and that became ninth place at the line after Alexander Albon was tagged by Lewis Hamilton on the final lap. A solid reward for the Mexican driver's determined efforts given the unpromising circumstances.
