George Russell (P12): 7.5/10
Highs and lows for George Russell this weekend, with the British GP crowd firmly and vocally behind the 23-year-old from King's Lynn. After a practice session spent on long runs, Russell rewarded his fans by storming into the final round of qualifying with what looked like ease (although of course it never is that easy) and even stole some of the limelight from his compatriot Lewis Hamilton finishing fastest of all. Unfortunately, as we know, the Williams doesn't have stellar race pace and when sprint qualifying got underway he clashed with Carlos Sainz; even though he kept going and crossed the line in ninth, the race stewards took a dim view of the incident and gave him a three-place grid penalty. More positions were lost at the start of the Grand Prix to Antonio Giovinazzi, Kimi Raikkonen and Lance Stroll, leaving Russell to spend much of the afternoon running in 14th place, but problems for others ahead of him put him on the verge of points with three laps to go - at which point Pierre Gasly passed him to slam the door shut on any such thoughts, leaving him 12th at the line.
Pierre Gasly (P11): 7/10
AlphaTauri never really seemed to come alive at Silverstone this weekend. Outside the top ten in both practice and qualifying on Friday, Pierre Gasly made no progress in the sprint race and ended up starting the race from 11th place after George Russell's grid penalty was applied. He lost out to Lance Stroll and Kimi Raikkonen at the start and to Antonio Giovinazzi at the restart, but he was quickly able to get his revenge on the Alfa Romeo. Gasly was up to sixth by the time he made his first scheduled pit stop on lap 28, switching from the medium to the hard compound, and was back in the points with five laps to go when he suffered a puncture that obliged him to pit for a second time. Not even a new set of soft tyres could manage to put him back into the top ten by the time the chequered flag came in sight. "Honestly I have no words," he said afterwards. "It's very frustrating to be coming away with no points after today's race."
