Nyck de Vries (P12): 6.5/10
The driver under most pressure coming into this weekend was surely Nyck de Vries, with rumours that AlphaTauri are already actively considering dumping their rookie signing after a disappointing run of results. But de Vries is not a former Formula E champion for nothing, and he calmly reset and pulled himself together this weekend. While not the sort of eye-catching miracle of his 2022 debut in Monza, this was a quietly competent display from F1's other Dutch driver as he just managed to make the first cut in qualifying. While team mate Yuki Tsunoda was taking all the attention by going P2 in Q1, de Vries was only four tenths slower than the Japanese driver on that occasion - not bad, Nyck, not bad at all. He eventually lined up in a healthy 12th place on the grid for the race itself, his best qualifying performance of the year. It put him just behind the two McLaren drivers including fellow rookie Oscar Piastri. When it came to the race, he diligently maintained position until his first and only pit stop on lap 53 where he traded his hard tyres for intermediates - as did Valtteri Bottas at the same time, which let the Alfa Romeo take the position from him. De Vries would eventually get P12 back after Tsunoda hit problems; while it's still short of points, it's still his best result since becoming a full-time F1 driver.
Valtteri Bottas (P11): 7/10
Valtteri Bottas hasn't scored points since the opening round of the season in Bahrain, but he came within touching distance this weekend in Monaco and probably extracted as much as possible from the waning Alfa Romeo. He'd been looking in with a chance of a top ten grid spot with good performances throughout practice, but then missed out in qualifying. He was eliminated at the end of the second round after hitting traffic on his final Q2 flying lap, leaving him starting from 15th on the grid. That's never good news in Monaco, and when the race got underway he found himself stuck behind the sluggish Alex Albon for the first 17 laps until the Williams was finally forced to pit for new tyres. Bottas then spent the rest of his own first stint wedged behind Nyck de Vries, and found no way around the AlphaTauri until it was time to pit for intermediates on lap 53 when the rain started to fall. That allowed him to get the jump on de Vries, but then it was the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in his way and nothing he could do was able to improve on 11th before the finish. "We probably got the most out of the day," he commented - and any time you gain four places at Monaco is not to be sniffed at.
