Carlos Sainz (P6, 8 pts): 8/10
Like his Ferrari team mate, Carlos Sainz looked to be struggling to find pace throughout practice in Spielberg and failed to breach the top ten in any of the three hour-long sessions. When it came to qualifying he missed the cut at the end of Q2 and was even out-done by George Russell in a Williams, although that was in part due to having his last lap time deleted for exceeding track limits. Still, it meant a subdued start to the race on Sunday where he was put on a long first stint that required him to stay out for 41 laps on a set of the medium compound tyres. Having spent the opening laps in tenth place he rose as high as fifth before it was time to make his appearance on pit lane, but the strategy had worked: he came back out in seventh, swiftly took care of Lance Stroll and settled into sixth which is where he remained for the rest of the afternoon. Unfortunately any hopes of catching Lando Norris had been thwarted when he found himself stuck behind Lewis Hamilton who had lapped him while he was in the pits. "A strong race and it was a good result for the team," Sainz concluded afterwards.
Lando Norris (P5, 10 pts): 9/10
A sluggish start to the weekend (just P16 in first practice and P19 in FP3!) eventually started to improve, and there was little doubt that Lando Norris would be making his customary appearance in the final round of qualifying on Saturday afternoon. Even so, fourth place at the end of Q3 was probably better than he had been realistically expecting, especially given his team mate Daniel Ricciardo ending up in 13th place. Norris gained a pre-race promotion to third courtesy of Valtteri Bottas' grid penalty, and he did his best to hold on to the potential podium when Sergio Perez made an early strike on the opening lap. While he repelled that attack, he eventually lost out on lap 10, and then succumbed to Valtteri Bottas a lap later. But that was as bad as it got for Norris, who held on to fifth place until his pit stop on lap 31 dropped him behind Carlos Sainz. The Ferrari's later stop promoted Norris back to fifth and after that it was all about staying out of trouble and bringing the car home to reap valuable points for the team - which is exactly what he did in what he subsequently dubbed "a simple and lonely Sunday."
