Sergio Perez (P4, 12 pts): 8.5/10
Still smarting from the announcement that he was being dropped by Racing Point when the team rebrands as Aston Martin next year, Sergio Perez is putting in a characteristically feisty performance in the face of career adversity. Even lacking the aero upgrades handed to Lance Stroll, he was fourth fastest in opening practice and stayed in the top six through the remaining sessions, and pipped Daniel Ricciardo to the second row of the grid in qualifying on Saturday. Unfortunately being on the dirty side of the grid meant that he lost out to both of the Renault drivers when the lights went out at the start of the race leaving him running in sixth place for the first half of the race. He made the soft tyres last 20 laps before making his stop which allowed him to pull off the overcut on his Renault rivals, and thereafter he picked up two more positions when Charles Leclerc and Daniil Kvyat made later stops which put him back up in fourth place. Given the top three line-up of Bottas, Verstappen and Hamilton, it was the absolute impressive most that the Mexican could possibly have done on Sunday.
Lewis Hamilton (Pole, P3, 15 pts): 7.5/10
Well, that was rather messy wasn't it? Anyone who complains that F1 is boring because of the metronomic efficiency of Mercedes and its lead driver will have enjoyed this weekend's antics, as it shows what happens when things start to come unstuck in even the best of set-ups. Lewis Hamilton was struggling to find grip at Sochi from the start, and was a shocking 19th fastest at the end of the first practice session on Friday. Of course he was back up at the top in the afternoon, and fastest in final practice, but then there was the drama of qualifying where he came within a split second of being eliminated at the end of Q2 after having multiple lap times deleted for exceeding track limits, leaving him vulnerable when Sebastian Vettel's crash triggered a red flag. Although he survived and went on to win pole, he then incurred two penalties before the race started for not following the correct practice start procedure on the way to the grid. Not surprisingly this left Hamilton out of sorts, unhappy with the timing of the team's decision to bring him in for new tyres and to serve the penalty. In the end, third place is decent damage limitation and Sochi has done minimal harm to his championship campaign, but the weekend was a most emphatic reminder that things don't always go Hamilton's way.
