Feature

F1i's Driver Ratings for the 2022 British GP

Alexander Albon (Accident, Lap 1): 5.5/10
Alex Albon was kitted out with all the latest upgrades available to the Williams FW44 this weekend and maybe that was the problem - too many changes, too little time to get them bedded in (due to losing FP1 to wet conditions). He certainly seemed to struggle with them, missing the cut at the end of Q1 while his team mate Nicholas Latifi powered into the final round. So maybe it's unfair to criticise Albon too harshly for what proved to be an inferior weekend at Silverstone: certainly his early exit in the race itself, after being rear-ended by Sebastian Vettel and spun across the track where he was hit by even more cars unable to react in time wasn't his fault. We're just pleased he was okay in the end; at times like this, ratings don't matter.

Zhou Guanyu (Accident, Lap 1): 8/10
While his Alfa Romeo team mate Valtteri Bottas mastered the wet conditions and topped FP1, Zhou Guanyu didn't manage to outpace the Finn throughout practice. But he did when it counted, when he managed to make it into the final round of qualifying while Bottas missed the cut at the end of Q2. It put him ninth on the grid for the start of the race and that proved a crucial problem when the lights went out and he found himself on the outside of a three-way battle with Pierre Gasly and George Russell. The slightest tap from Gasly sent Russell spinning into him, flipping the C42 upside down for the scariest ride it's possible to think of for an F1 driver, culminating in a final midair somersault and coming to rest on its side behind the tyre barrier. He was just one of many people yesterday rightly praising the Halo for saving his life. In such situations the rating hardly matters, so we'll base it on his strong performance in qualifying alone.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.

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