Pierre Gasly (P2, 18 pts): 9.5/10
Pierre Gasly started 2019 with Red Bull but almost immediately came under fire for not being consistent enough. The axe fell over the summer and he found himself swapped back to the sister Toro Rosso team, seemingly another victim of Red Bull's brutal driver development programme. But rather than this being the end of his budding F1 career it's rather proved to be the (re)making of him. Ever since he's returned to Faenza he's been a lot happier, and clearly much better suited to the STR14. The apogee of the Gasly renaissance came this weekend in Brazil, where he outperformed his team mate Daniil Kvyat in Friday's practice sessions and duly made it into the final round of qualifying on Saturday to pick up sixth place on the grid as the 'best of the rest' behind the Big Three teams. He was unable to hold off Charles Leclerc's recovery from an engine penalty but thereafter maintained seventh position for much of the race, before gaining a position with Valtteri Bottas' retirement and the subsequent safety car that crucially gave him the opportunity to unlap himself before the restart. He then gained two more places when both Ferraris famously faltered, and with Lewis Hamilton making a surprise late pit stop under the second safety car he found himself up in a potential podium place. Hamilton immediately deflated that hope with a quick pass, but seconds later the Mercedes made an ill-fated lunge on Alexander Albon and Gasly needed no repeat invitation to pass them both and pick up second place. He was still ahead of Hamilton by a whisker at the line, where it's fair to say there was a lot of shouting and whooping and hollering from the cockpit of the #10 car as realisation of what he had achieved sank in. You have been warned: you will want to lower the volume on your TV for any subsequent replays!
