Valtteri Bottas (P18): 5.5/10
A pretty horrible weekend for Alfa Romeo, and for Valtteri Bottas in particular who seemed to have no feel for the Jeddah Corniche Circuit. Only P18 in first and final practice, and dead last in the Friday evening second session, he just never seemed to find the key to unlock any sort of performance from the C43. He did manage to scramble into the second round of qualifying to start from 14th on the grid, but inevitably lost a spot to Max Verstappen at the start and then headed inexorably toward the back of the field. The only driver to make three pit stops during the race after sustaining damage by driving over debris on the opening lap leaving him with little or no grip, it's no surprise that he was also the only car to finish a lap off the leaders. Afterwards he admitted that it had been such a nightmare that he'd almost thrown in the towel and given up.
Lando Norris (P17): 5/10
This was possibly Lando Norris' worst race in his F1 career to date, and while some of it was down to the poor performance of the MCL60 and to plain bad luck, he also had to accept the blame for the single biggest setback when he glanced the wall in the first round of qualifying and damaged the left steering arm of the McLaren before he could set a representative lap time, leaving him starting Sunday's race from the back of the grid. That's always a dangerous place to be as you run into other people's problems, and sure enough he collected debris (ironically dropped by the other McLaren) on the opening lap that forced him to pit for a new front wing. After that there was some interplay with his team mate Oscar Piastri and the other 2023 rookies, but by this time the hole Norris was in was simply too deep to climb out of. A race that Lando will work very hard to forget.
