Lance Stroll (Retired, Lap 20): 7/10
There's no question that this year's 'Pink Merc' Racing Point is looking much stronger than last year's model - it's amazing what a bit of technical design DNA-splicing can do. Lance Stroll was looking much happier this weekend than he ever did in 2019 as he comfortably made it into the top ten in FP2 and FP3, and both he and Sergio Perez cruised into the final round of qualifying on Saturday afternoon in a way that was never possible last season. It was strange therefore to see Stroll struggle at the start of the race, until it became clear that the car had developed a sensor issue preventing the engine from running at top speed. By lap 17 the problem had gone from a mere annoyance to completely terminal. Stroll was obliged to retire the car in the garage without really being able to show what might have been possible in Spielberg; fortunately he'll have a second chance next week once the glitches have been ironed out
Kevin Magnussen (Retired, Lap 24): 6/10
We'd been hoping that Haas had made some sort of progress over the long off-season, and bounce back from the terrible season they suffered in 2019. Unfortunately nothing we saw in Austria suggests that to be the case. Brakes continue to be their Achilles Heel, with both Kevin Magnussen and his team mate prematurely retiring from the first race of the season. Not that either driver was really able to achieve much even before then: Magnussen was at least faster than Romain Grosjean on Friday, but he was down to 17th place by final practice and was always one of the prime candidates to drop out of qualifying at the end of Q1 - ironically bumped out by a late improvement from Grosjean. Magnussen did at least fend off attacks from the Alfa Romeos at the start of the race, and did well to hold off Esteban Ocon for as long as he did before the brake failure sent him into the gravel on lap 24.
