F1i's Driver Ratings for the 2021 French GP

Lance Stroll (P10, 1 pt): 7.5/10
Aston Martin looked to be struggling for pace and firmly outside the top ten on Friday and Saturday, but that might just have been down to them concentrating on race pace rather than speed. Lance Stroll failed to set a time in qualifying, but we'll cut him some slack on that as it wasn't entirely his fault with the red flags interfering - although having his first time deleted for exceeding track limits was a painful lesson to the Canadian about putting safety first and not pushing too hard before you have something to build on. It meant he started last on the grid, but the Aston is a good package and easily dispatched the regular backmarkers when the lights went out on Sunday. By lap 13 he was up to 14th; and then he stayed out on the hard tyres while others ahead pitted and he was soon flying high in sixth. Of course he paid for that when he finally made his own deferred stop on lap 34, but the fresh mediums gave him a boost and he passed George Russell on lap 39, Yuki Tsunoda on lap 42, and Carlos Sainz on lap 48 so that he was just back in the points by the time the chequered flag appeared.

Sebastian Vettel (P9, 2 pts): 7/10
After his first podium for Aston Martin last time out in Baku, the question was whether Sebastian Vettel could maintain his renaissance this week at Le Castellet or whether he would go into a second slump. While it was no podium this time around, the good news that Vettel had nothing to be ashamed about on Sunday and acquitted himself as well as the AMR21 would allow him to given that the Circuit Paul Ricard didn't really play to the car's strengths. The team seemed to know and accept this from the start and they were never on the pace in practice, but qualifying in 12th meant that Vettel got a free choice of tyres. He went for the hard compound, setting him up for a mammoth 37-lap first stint before changing to the mediums for a strong finish. Along the way he had the satisfaction of passing Carlos Sainz on lap 44, the man who had taken his seat at Ferrari. A few laps later he'd successfully achieved his third consecutive points finish for his new team. "We made the best of things, and it was a strong performance by the whole team with competitive race pace."