Feature

F1i's Driver Ratings for the 2023 Azerbaijan GP

40

Nyck de Vries (SP14, Accident - Lap 10): 3/10
We really hate to kick a man when he's down, and normally we'd be more gentle with a rookie, but Nyck de Vries is no ordinary rookie - he's a former Formula E world champion, after all - and the truth is that he had an utterly dismal weekend in Baku. Strangely enough it started quite decently in practice where he was sixth fastest, but after that he looked like an accident looking for somewhere to happen. He crashed in qualifying before he could set a proper time, and was slowest in the sprint showdown on Saturday morning. He managed to last the distance in the sprint race and made up a few places to finish in 14th despite clashing with his AlphaTauri team mate Yuki Tsunoda, but then clipped the wall ten laps into the Grand Prix to bring out a safety car that indirectly cost compatriot Max Verstappen his shot at victory. It was his second retirement in as many races, and sadly de Vries - so memorable as a late stand-in at last year's Italian GP - is already looking horribly out of his depth in F1.

Zhou Guanyu (SP12, Retired - Lap 37): 5/10
It was not a good weekend for Alfa Romeo as a whole, which seemed to have absolutely nothing in the locker and just trudged around the streets of Baku looking out-matched by every other team out there. Even Zhou Guanyu struggled to find any personal saving points: while he was quicker than his team mate Valtteri Bottas in practice and was ahead of the Finn in the sprint showdown, he was slower in the main qualifying session where he failed to make the first cut at the end of Q1. He did manage to improve to P12 in the short sprint on Saturday afternoon, but his efforts to do something similar on Sunday saw him overtaken by Pierre Gasly at the start of the race. He then got stuck in a long DRS train with few opportunities to make a break for it, before his day ended prematurely in technical failure while running back where he'd started - in 16th place.

Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.