Alexander Albon (P10, 1 pt): 7.5/10
It feels like we got used to Williams scoring championship points in 2021, although in fact they did so on only four occasions. It had also taken them until round 11 in Hungary before they finally broke the drought that has persisted since Robert Kubica's solitary point in Germany in 2019. Going into Sunday's race it didn't look like there was going to be any similar success for the team in Melbourne, what with Nicholas Latifi developing a messy habit of crashing and Albon already saddled with a three place grid drop for colliding with Lance Stroll at the end of the Saudi Arabian GP. Nor was the FW44 looking up to speed at Albert Park, with both drivers in the bottom four in Friday practice and Albon topping out in P16 on Saturday. It was a decent qualifying thought and he missed the cut at the end of Q1 by just 0.031s - only to be excluded from the results after insufficient fuel was left in his car when it then ground to a halt on track. Allowed to start from dead last on the grid, the situation seemed hopeless; but the team came up with a daring strategy of running 57 laps (in a 58 lap race!) on a single set of hard compound tyres. Miraculously he made it before pitting from a lofty seventh place, giving him one lap on his new soft tyres to keep ahead of Guanyu Zhou and thereby secure his first championship point in Williams colours. Bravo!
Pierre Gasly (P9, 2 pts): 7/10
The AlphaTauri didn't really take to the re-profiled Albert Park Circuit, but as usual Pierre Gasly did his very best to wring every last bit of performance out of the AT03 as he possibly could. Although he was slower than Yuki Tsunoda in two of the three practice sessions, ninth place in FP2 hinted that he might have enough in reserve to make it all the way through qualifying. In the end he just missed the cut at the end of Q2 and had to settle for 11th place on the grid for Sunday's race. Carlos Sainz' anti-stall problems promoted him into the top ten even before the Ferrari got beached in the gravel, and Gasly then settled in for the first 20 laps of the race. Unfortunately he pitted just before the safety car came out for Sebastian Vettel's retirement, and with so many others getting a 'free' stop as a consequence he found himself running in 14th and with points now looking unlikely. However the Virtual Safety Car on lap 39 for Max Verstappen's demise returned some of the lost spots when those starting on hard tyres only now made their deferred stops, allowing him to take the restart back up to tenth. He gained another spot with a pass on Lance Stroll on lap 49 after a long duel with the Aston Martin, only to make a small error and lose out minutes later to Valtteri Bottas. Alex Albon's late pit stop on the penultimate lap gave him another go at clinching ninth and this time he managed to lock it down by the time the chequered flag waved. Not one of Gasly's best races, but still solid and without accidents or technical issues.
