Mick Schumacher (P14): 6/10
Mick Schumacher missed out on Haas' package of upgrades this weekend, but judging from how things turned out it doesn't look like he suffered unduly. Both cars were in the bottom five on Friday but Schumacher was still within a couple of tenths or so of Kevin Magnussen. Both made it through to the second round of qualifying on Saturday afternoon, leaving Mick 15th on the grid for Sunday's race which saw him make a strong start when the lights went out with an immediate gain of three places having started on mediums. He found himself running behind the two McLarens of Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo for a spell and peaked in eighth place as the pit stops cycled through, after which he plunged all the way back to P17. Opting for a set of hard tyres for the next stint backfired badly leaving him making no progress at all, before he pitted for a second time on lap 41 to return to the medium compound. He spent the remainder of the race running ahead of Magnussen, and the pair were caught and passed by Zhou Guanyu in the final ten laps after the Alfa Romeo made a late stop and switched to soft tyres giving him a significant speed advantage in the run to the chequered flag.
Zhou Guanyu (P13): 6.5/10
Zhou Guanyu was leading the team in first practice where he was four tenths quicker than reserve driver Robert Kubica who had once again displaced Valtteri Bottas for FP1. Bottas was back in FP2 and soon went quicker, but Zhou was reasonably close and carried his solid form into qualifying on Saturday. He just missed the cut at the end of Q2 but still secured himself 12th place on the grid for the race. Unfortunately he had a terrible start and lost five places when the lights went out (as did Bottas, suggesting there's something about the Alfa's launch systems that is really not happy at the moment) leaving him with a lot of ground to recover. A long first stint on mediums saw him poke his head up inside the top ten, but a middle stint on the hard tyres trying to go the full distance without another stop undid any progress he had made. A late switch to the soft compound at least allowed him some fun in the final laps as he picked off Alex Albon, Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher before the chequered flag.
