Alexander Albon (P6, 8 pts): 7/10
Just when we thought that Alex Albon had saved his race seat at 2020 with last week's podium, the latest race seems to throw everything into doubt once again. The weekend started brightly enough with Albon less than a tenth off the pace of team mate Max Verstappen in first practice. He was still quite close in FP2, but then lost ground in final practice (half a second away from Max now) and went on to suffer a very poor qualifying session in which he only just scrapped into Q2 and then failed to make it through to the final round - surely pretty much a basic job requirement from a Red Bull driver these days. When it came to what he later described "a very strange and scrappy race", Albon struggled to make significant progress in the first stint and was still mired in tenth by the time the first round of pit stops began. But to his credit he made an extended 47-lap stint on medium tyres pay off to his advantage, peaking in fourth place before making the first of his own two stops. He ultimately finished in sixth and said that the downforce settings hadn't played to the RB16's strengths, with the car proving quick in sectors where it was impossible to overtake while being slow in other sectors. Ultimately the weekend hadn't really been all that bad for Albon, it's just that it looked rather lacklustre compared to the dazzling display from Sergio Perez - who is still a free agent for 2021...
Daniel Ricciardo (P5, 10 pts): 8/10
Despite taking a perfectly decent fifth place on Sunday - how Renault would have cheered such an achievement last season! - Daniel Ricciardo was in the shadow of his team mate Esteban Ocon this weekend. The young French driver was consistently ahead of him throughout all three practice sessions, although when it came to qualifying it was Ricciardo who had the last laugh by making it through to the final round of qualifying while Ocon was on the outside looking in from 11th. However in a way that worked against Ricciardo in the race, since he was now stuck with a set of soft tyres for the start which limited his strategy options. He gained three places at the start with a pass on Danill Kvyat and amid the Verstappen/Leclerc/Perez incident on the first lap, leaving him running in fourth place for the initial 30-lap stint until he pitted for a fresh set of medium tyres. That worked reasonably well and he had recovered any lost ground by the time he made his second stop on lap 55. However a move to the hard compound didn't seem to suit him quite as well: while he gained places as a result of George Russell's late puncture and a pass on Valtteri Bottas who had been left on old tyres as a result of the Mercedes pit stop meltdown, he then found himself stuck behind Carlos Sainz and unable to do anything about passing the McLaren for the whole of the second half of the race. Meanwhile his team mate benefited from a better strategy to reach the podium fpr the first time.
