Antonio Giovinazzi (P14): 5.5/10
In what was overall a wretched weekend for Alfa Romeo, Antonio Giovinazzi can at least claim to have made some forward progress from his initial outings on Friday where he was slower than his veteran team mate Kimi Raikkonen. He actually pipped the Finn in both final practice and qualifying on Saturday although inevitably he still didn't survive the cut at the end of Q1. However he did start from 14th on the grid once penalties elsewhere factored in, and soon gained two places over the opening laps to run much of the afternoon in 12th place. He enjoyed some entertaining early battles with the AlphaTauri rivals in the crowded midfield, and even came close at one point to catching and passing Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari. However he also incurred a five second penalty for a safety car infringement, and his waning pace toward the end meant he was eventually classified back down where he'd started - in 14th place.
Carlos Sainz (P13): 8.5/10
A strong weekend for Carlos Sainz was wrecked at the last minute by the same tyre issues that also befell Mercedes. Before that, the Spaniard had been faster than his team mate throughout practice although he just lost out at the end of qualifying to Lando Norris. It was a situation he immediately rectified at the start of Sunday's race when he passed both Norris and Lance Stroll while fending off a spirited attack from Daniel Ricciardo, setting himself up nicely in fifth place where he continued to run for pretty much the entire afternoon. That would have put him into fourth place at the finish line after Valtteri Bottas hit problems, except that those same issues also simultaneously struck the McLaren. A delaminated tyre forced him to limp back to pit lane for replacements, and by the time that was done he was out of the points on a day when he really deserved to score big.
