Valtteri Bottas (Pole, P8, 4 pts): 8/10
On the face of it, the absence of Lewis Hamilton from this week's race - the first time that the world champion has missed a race since his 2007 debut in Melbourne - should have presented Valtteri Bottas with the ideal opportunity to show what he can do and pick up a third win of 2020. But right from the start there was a sense of nervousness as it dawned on Bottas that he had more to lose than gain: if stand-in team mate George Russell won on his first outing for Mercedes, what would that say about the Finn's own long term prospects? Perhaps that accounted for his unusually scrappy performance in Friday practice, but he was back on form on Saturday and just managed to pip Russell for pole position. However, as too often this season, Bottas once again struggled to get a good start to the race and lost the lead to Russell going into the first corner while narrowly fending off Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez. After that Bottas seemed somewhat resigned to finishing in second place and was rarely within DRS range of Russell all night. But then came that disastrous pit stop on lap 62: Russell was fitted with the front tyres that should have gone to Bottas whose own stop had to be aborted mid-way through. It left him on worn hard tyres for the final stint, allowing Carlos Sainz, Daniel Ricciardo, Alex Albon and Daniil Kvyat to get around him before the finish. The one very small bit of consolation for Bottas was that he had, after all, beaten Russell on the day - but not in a way he could take any satisfaction from.
Daniil Kvyat (P7, 6 pts): 8/10
Daniil Kvyat is another of a number of drivers who seem set to leave Formula 1 (for now, at least) at the end of 2020, but at least the young Russian is going out on something of a resurgence. He was in the top six in both of Friday's practice sessions and moreover quicker than his AlphaTauri team mate Pierre Gasly. He delivered on that promise again in qualifying. Starting Sunday's race from sixth place he picked up a spot on the first lap and maintained his elevated position until he was the first of the top ten runners to come in for the first round of pit stops on lap 27, which briefly dropped him out of the top ten. His second stop came just before the Virtual Safety Car for Nicholas Latifi's retirement which meant he got little benefit from it; but the ructions resulting from Mercedes' final pit stop subsequently helped him pick up extra places. A nice pass on Valtteri Bottas on lap 78 meant he finished in a commendable seventh place while Gasly went pointless. Sadly it's not going to be enough to allow him to retain his seat now that Honda hopeful Yuki Tsunoda has successfully secured the superlicence points from F2 that he needs for promotion to the Grand Prix paddock next year.
