Valtteri Bottas (P12): 5/10
For a man who looks like he knows that his time is running out at Mercedes, Valtteri Bottas still started brightly enough with the fastest time in first practice on Friday morning, and he followed it up with second place in the afternoon when just 0.072s covered the top three. But after that he seemed to disappear out of sight on Saturday with a spin leaving him a poor 11th in final practice, and while he easily made it through to the final round of qualifying later in the day he ended up in eighth place after hitting traffic and losing heat from his tyres before his crucial final run. It was far from what the team had been hoping and expecting from him. A further five place grid penalty stemming from the accident he triggered on the first lap of the Hungarian GP meant he was set to start the race from 13th. It's entirely possible that a wet race might well have given him the opportunity to bounce back to the front, but sadly we'll never know as the Grand Prix never really got underway. The only position Bottas made up on Sunday was courtesy of Sergio Perez spinning out on his way to the grid.
Fernando Alonso (P11): 6/10
After their strong showing in Hungary, Alpine were hoping that the Belgian Grand Prix would continue the team's recent renaissance. It started promisingly enough on Friday with both drivers in the top ten and a newly-confirmed-for-2022 Alonso finishing the day in a strong fourth place. But the Spaniard dropped back on Saturday, and his tenth place in FP3 prefigured his failure to make the cut at the end of the second round of qualifying later in the day meaning that he was left in 12th place on the grid for the start of Sunday's race. A start which never happened: while Alonso gained a place thanks to Sergio Perez' pre-race accident, he was still left one position short of getting into the points. Not that he thought there should have been any points in the circumstances: "It's strange that points are scored for this weekend," he commented afterwards. "It was only ever a red flag situation out on track and we only drove laps under the safety car, so it wasn't a race. Everyone involved tried their best."
