F1i's Driver Ratings for the 2023 Australian GP

Carlos Sainz (P12, Five-second penalty): 7.5/10
It's not been the best start to the season for Ferrari. Of the two drivers, Carlos Sainz is having the better time of it. Although he was pipped by Charles Leclerc on Friday, he moved ahead of the Monegasque in final practice and duly finished two places and a tenth ahead in the final round of qualifying to claim fifth place on the grid right behind Fernando Alonso. He managed to get ahead of the Aston Martin into the first corner when the lights went out at the start of the race and was feeling confident on the medium tyre, but like George Russell he was caught out by the timing of the first safety car: as soon as he pitted the race was red flagged leaving him down in 11th place. Fired up, he fought his way back through the field after the restart and on lap 25 passed Pierre Gasly to return to fourth place with Alonso once again his principle target ahead of him on the road. When the race resumed after a second red flag, he thrust his way forward - and tipped the Aston into a spin for which he received a five second penalty for the final restart, dropping him out of the points. It was undoubtedly a harsh penalty - usually, incidents on starts and restarts are shrugged off as racing incidents - but the video made it clear that he really had been at fault, for all his heart-felt protestations.

Valtteri Bottas (P11): 4.5/10
It seems odd to be giving a driver who finished this far up the classification such a low rating, but that shows how lucky Valtteri Bottas was on Sunday as he managed to stay out of trouble for the entire afternoon. However if we're being ruthlessly honest, one of the main reasons for that is because he was so slow that he barely had time or opportunity to get in anyone's way. He was the slowest runner in qualifying (not counting Sergio Perez who locked up and went off without setting a time) and ended up starting Sunday's race from pit lane after the Alfa Romeo engineers tried to cobble together a solution for his total lack of pace. It didn't seem to do him much good, although in the race he was able to push ahead of Nyck de Vries (on lap 26) and Logan Sargeant (on lap 35). When the penultimate restart took place, the collateral damage left him dead last on track again; it's just that there only happened to be 12 cars still running. He got an extra place thanks to Carlos Sainz penalty, but by any realistic appraisal of the day P11 was an absurdly inflated result for the Finn. "My afternoon was pretty lonely, with little action," he admitted.