Pierre Gasly (P8, 4 pts): 8/10
Pierre Gasly will remember the Saudi Arabian GP for a long time, thanks to the stabbing pains he suffered going through left-handers due to intestinal discomfort. (Don't ask. We certainly didn't!) It was equally uncomfortable for AlphaTauri as a whole, with chronic reliability issues for Yuki Tsunoda rendering the weekend almost a one-man show for Gasly. The AT03 once again performed best in warmer conditions, with both cars in the top six in the daylight first practice but dropping down the order again once the sun went down. Gasly was back to P7 and held on to most of that gain in qualifying to make it into the top ten, while Tsunoda's miserable time continued as he failed to set any time. The Japanese driver was absent again on Sunday, and Gasly lost two places off the grid to Kevin Magnussen and Lando Norris, but he soon found his balance and got back past the McLaren in short order to run the opening stint in tenth. His pit stop on lap 17 allowed Norris to get ahead again and Gasly found himself following in the tyre marks of the MCL36 for virtually the entire rest of the race, by which time he was back up to eighth and happy to salvage four points for the team.
Lando Norris (P7, 6 pts): 8/10
Last week's season opener in Bahrain had been so dire for McLaren it looked like they would be stuck in wooden spoon contention for the rest of the year. Fortunately there was some genuine improvement and room for optimism this time around, with both drivers looking somewhat back to their old selves. Although he was seventh in FP2, Norris looked sluggish in the other two sessions and it was a relief when he got through the first round of qualifying, ultimately coming within a whisker of making it all the way into the pole shoot-out. The two McLarens would have started side-by-side on row six if not for Ricciardo's penalty for impeding Esteban Ocon in the session. In the race, Ricciardo was the first car to stop for hard tyres while Norris waited for a safety car, and it was the Aussie who came out best from that putting him one place ahead for the restart. That status quo persisted until Ricciardo's car suddenly lost power in lap 36, and sundry retirements and late pit stops for those who had started on the hard compound ended up promoting Norris to seventh for the restart. He almost made it sixth with a pass on Ocon on lap 48, but the Alpine had the final say by retaking the spot on the final lap.
