Mick Schumacher (P8, 4 pts): 8/10
It's been a torrid season for Mick Schumacher, with his two huge smashes at Jeddah and Monaco earning exasperated public criticism from Haas boss Guenther Steiner. More problematic was the fact after nine races, only he and Nicholas Latifi had failed to score any championship points. Suddenly people were questioning whether Mick was there on name only or whether he was overrated. Unfair or not, it was criticism he needed to respond to,. His performance on Sunday therefore couldn't have been better timed, especially after problems with his steering wheel meant he had under-delivered in wet qualifying the previous day dumping him onto the back row of the grid. At least it kept him out of danger in the explosive initial start, and when the race resumed he was able to make slow, steady, methodical progress to tenth with a pass on Daniel Ricciardo before his pit stop. He got stuck behind Esteban Ocon for a spell and then found himself with a chance to attack Max Verstappen in the wounded Red Bull. That was too big a bite, but he did have the immense satisfaction of picking off his mentor Sebastian Vettel in the closing laps to finally pick up his first championship points in Formula 1 in 31 starts.
Max Verstappen (P7, 6 pts): 9/10
Max Verstappen wasn't interested in coming out to play in the wet in FP1 and was also slightly subdued in FP2, but on Saturday he was back in form atop the timesheets. He was slightly miffed to lose out on pole to Carlos Sainz in qualifying but there weren't many in the paddock who doubted he would have any problem taking the lead on race day. Red Bull have him an extra advantage choosing to start him on soft tyres, but this audacious gamble was for nought when the red flag for Zhou Guanyu's accident reset the grid for the restart. This time Verstappen went with the majority opinion of mediums and as a result just failed to prise his way past Sainz. Ten laps in, though, the Ferrari made a mistake and Verstappen was firmly in charge. Job done! Until it wasn't: a lump of debris (ironically from one of the sister AlphaTauris after Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda clashed on lap 11) caused extensive damage to the RB18. It's to the team and driver's huge credit that they finally found a way to work around the 'rupture' and limit the harm to seventh place. A lesser talent than Verstappen wouldn't have been able to pull it off.
