George Russell (P4, 12 pts): 8/10
George Russell's weekend started on a high by topping first practice by two tenths from his Mercedes team mate, only to go into a steep decline when he dropped to P15 in the afternoon. He was still struggling on Saturday, but doing better than Hamilton at least, and the red flag at the end of qualifying was a lucky break that saw him start Sunday's race from sixth, with Hamilton having missed the final cut entirely. He gained a place on the first lap but lost out when Max Verstappen came calling on lap 9; however the distraction caused by the Red Bull gave Russell the chance to pounce on Pierre Gasly and take fifth place from the Alpine on lap 10. Russell had started on the mediums and pitted on lap 17 giving him work to do to make up some of the lost positions. He made rapid progress passing Zhou Guanyu, Lance Stroll, Yuki Tsunoda and Nico Hulkenberg. Then on lap 32 he was allowed past Hamilton who was still on his original set of hard tyres, which allowed Russell to catch and pick off Esteban Ocon and Carlos Sainz on consecutive laps. That put him in fourth place on lap 37, but he was left with insufficient time to catch Fernando Alonso to compete for a podium.
Fernando Alonso (P3, 15 pts): 9/10
After so long in the wilderness, Fernando Alonso has achieved a new level of consistency that means these days third place on the podium should come with an permanent embossed plaque bearing his name. It's the fourth time in five races in 2023 that the two-time world champion has finished P3 - all the more remarkable given that he was on the podium just once between Hungary 2014 and the end of 2022. After last week's problems with DRS, Alonso and the Aston Martin team were hoping for a quieter time this week where they could get down to business bedding in some of their recent upgrades, but dropping to 12th place in final practice before qualifying might have caused a frisson of concern. Alonso shrugged it off and delivered a front row position in second alongside Sergio Perez, who viewed him as such a concern at the start of Sunday's race that he made a point of angling the Red Bull to fire a shot across the bows and discourage Alonso from getting any ideas into the first corner. Alonso was quite content to leave Perez to it, and offered little resistance when Max Verstappen fired past on lap 15. He probably thought his chances of a podium had faded when he came out of the pits behind Carlos Sainz, but the Ferrari was curiously passive when Alonso tried knocking on the door on lap 27, and Ocon was similarly easy prey a few minutes later. With George Russell too far back to present a problem, Alonso had his customary podium - and was probably quite surprised it hadn't been harder work.
