Pierre Gasly (P10, 1 pt): 7.5/10
AlphaTauri could really do with something special at this point to reenergise their flagging season, which has seen the team fall to ninth place in the constructors championship. Pierre Gasly had a decent time in FP1 and was ninth quickest, but fell back to P14 in the later session. Making it to the final round of qualifying looked like it would be touch-and-go, but Gasly was more than up to the task: despite a problem with the front wheels locking at the ninety degree turn, he made the best of the changeable conditions to put himself into seventh place on the grid for Sunday's race. Forced to start on used intermediate tyres, he avoided any drama when the lights went out and held onto that position for the first ten laps, only giving way when Max Verstappen came calling. With Red Bull and AlphaTauri being sister squads, he put up little resistance to the faster car. Fernando Alonso's retirement restored him to seventh, and he was among the first pack of cars to switch to slicks which initially dropped him out of the top ten but the final safety car helped him get back in the points - and this time he kept a tight grip on tenth to the finish.
Lewis Hamilton (P9, 2 pts): 7.5/10
On Friday there was a definite sense in the Mercedes camp that this might be their breakthrough race, one that could be the best chance yet for Lewis Hamilton to continue his record of winning at least one race every season. He pipped Max Verstappen to the top spot in FP1, and even though he was six tenths slower than Carlos Sainz in FP2 he was still looking in contention for pole on Saturday. In that context, third on the grid was good but not great, and Hamilton had clearly wanted and expected more and thrown everything he had into it. He then lost out to Carlos Sainz at the start of the race when he went wide into the first corner and made slight contact with the Ferrari in the process. Hamilton was frustrated by not being able to find a way past the slower Sainz for the first 32 laps, and then made a mistake which put him into the barrier on lap 33. He was lucky to escape with only minor damage to his front wing, which was replaced when he pitted for slick tyres. But it left him in eighth place with little opportunity to bounce back, and salt was rubbed in his wounds when Max verstappen (on a fresh set of softs) blasted past with three laps to go.
