Antonio Giovinazzi (P10, 1 pt): 7.5/10
A genuinely impressive day for Antonio Giovinazzi although it's probably come too late in the day to save his seat at Alfa Romeo with Mick Schumacher seemingly all-but confirmed to take over next year despite missing out on his maiden F1 outing this weekend because of the poor weather on Friday. Giovinazzi made an anonymous start in FP3 (only Nicholas Latifi was slower) but came alive in qualifying, with an excellent final lap in Q1 ensuring he made the cut while his team mate Kimi Raikkonen failed to make it through. Starting from 14th on the grid, Giovinazzi then had a great launch to propel him past Sebastian Vettel, Daniil Kvyat and Pierre Gasly on the first lap and by lap 30 he was running in eighth place albeit a lap down. He had the good fortune to pit for the second time for fresh medium tyres just before the safety car came out and restored everyone back on to the lead lap, after which he had a straightforward run to the finish in tenth place to secure a shiny new championship point for Alfa.
Romain Grosjean (P9, 2 pts): 8/10
What's this? Romain Grosjean finishing in the points? The last time that happened was back in 2019, also in Germany albeit at Hockenheim. He had to suffer for his prize, however, after his hand was hit by a piece of flying gravel kicked up by Kimi Raikkonen straying off track ahead of him. Fortunately his finger wasn't broken as he'd initially feared but merely badly bruised, and despite having fallen to the back of the field Grosjean was able to continue with the race. The Haas strategists put him on a one-stop plan and he switched from mediums to hard compound tyres just before the midway point. This almost backfired when a subsequent safety car gave everyone else the chance of a 'free' stop while Grosjean had to stay out and hope that his older tyres would be sufficient to hold the others off. He did lose out to Pierre Gasly and Nico Hulkenberg at the restart, but was then able to find sufficient pace to maintain ninth position for the final ten laps and secure those precious two points. Given his previous form and that of Haas to date this season, it was an impressive achievement and return to form for the Frenchman.
