Nico Hulkenberg (P12): 6.5/10
Nico Hulkenberg was quicker than his Haas team mate Kevin Magnussen throughout practice and qualifying, and while he just missed the cut at the end of the second round he still found himself starting the race inside the top ten after Charles Leclerc's engine component penalty was applied. Unfortunately the race did not go as smoothly, and he lost two places at the start to Magnussen and Alfa Romeo's Zhou GUanyu. Even though he was among those making an early pit stop, the safety car for Lance Stroll's retirement helped restore him to 12th place where he shadowed his team mate through to lap 45, when Magnussen was able to pass Yuki Tsunoda. Hulkenberg was still attempting to emulate that feat when the chequered flag came out. Given that Magnussen finished in the points, you have to judge Hulkenberg's race as a slight disappointment in the circumstances.
Yuki Tsunoda (P11): 7/10
It perhaps shouldn't be the surprise that it is to see Yuki Tsunoda as the stronger driver at the struggling AlphaTauri squad, given that his team mate is a rookie still working out where the ignition key goes on the AT04. He's shouldering the burden of team leader pretty well, but really could have done with coming away from Saudi Arabia with some points in his back pocket for all his efforts. He had narrowly missed out on making it beyond the first round of qualifying by a hundredth of a second, but put in a solid first stint in the race and seemed ideally placed to capitalise on the safety car to make his pit stop on lap 17 and change to the hard compound for the remainder of the evening. However once the race resumed he was no match for the Alpines of Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly, and toward the end of the race his hopes of securing a point for tenth were dashed when Kevin Magnussen finally forced his way through on lap 45.
