George Russell (P12): 7.5/10
It was a weird, slightly upside down performance from George Russell this weekend - which is by no means a criticism as it ended up with his best result for Williams this season. Perhaps his normal routine was unsettled by missing out on first practice, where he was obliged to hand over the keys to reserve driver Roy Nissany. It meant his advantage over regular team mate Nicholas Latifi was under a tenth in FP2 and still close in final practice, leading to a knife-edge result in qualifying where he only beat Latifi by two thousandths of a second to make it into Q2 (although red flags also played a major part in that scare). He suffered a poor start on Sunday, quickly passed by Kimi Raikkonen and Lance Stroll which meant he dropped behind Latifi for the first 12 laps until he finally found a way past just before his pit stop to exchange medium tyres for hards to make it to the finish. He spent the rest of the afternoon shadowing Yuki Tsunoda as the pair made progress up the order, and with four laps to go he then got the better of the AlphaTauri to claim 12th place at the line. Given there were no retirements, and the likes of Ocon, Raikkonen and Leclerc finished behind him, this was one time when the 'Saturday hero, Sunday zero' driver had turned the tables and delivered more in the race than he had in qualifying. Or as he put it himself: "It's probably the best race I've ever had with the team!"
Carlos Sainz (P11): 6.5/10
While France was certainly a bad result for Ferrari as a whole, Carlos Sainz can take some solace on being by far the better performer for the team in the French Grand Prix. After trailing his team mate in Friday's practice session, he was third fastest on Saturday morning and out-performed Charles Leclerc in qualifying to start the race one row ahead. Briefly ahead of Sergio Perez at the start, he maintained fifth place for the opening stint right up until his pit stop on lap 16, but the timing allowed both Leclerc and Daniel Ricciardo to undercut him. It left him in 13th with Pierre Gasly right behind, dogging him at every turn. He was able to pass his team mate on lap 29 but lost out to Lando Norris a couple of laps later, and then Pierre Gasly finally pounced on lap 36. He was still fighting for a points finish, but the Aston Martin strategy of long first stints on hard tyres meant that Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll both got by in the last dozen laps leaving Sainz just out of the top ten despite all his efforts.
