Alexander Albon (P16): 5.5/10
Williams seem to have gone rather flat since their sprightly start to the season. It's most evident in Logan Sargeant's rookie struggles, but a look on the other side of the garage shows that the issues are actually quite widely and evenly spread. We're familiar with Alex Albon getting through to the second round of qualifying and even vying for a place in Q3, but that was definitely not the case in Barcelona. The two Williams were at the bottom of all three practice sessions, and when it came to qualifying Albon made a subdued early exit at the end of the first round despite having finished the session ahead of a Ferrari and was only two tenths away from making it into Q2. The lack of pace for the FW45 was only confirmed when it came to the race itself where neither Albon nor Sargeant were able to make much progress when the lights went out. Managing to stay out until lap 16 on the set of soft tyres before pitting for the hard compound meant Albon briefly peaked in tenth but the strategy didn't pay off and he came back out of the pits dead last. After that he found himself jousting with his team mate and the likes of Lando Norris, Valtteri Bottas and the two Haas cars as to who would come out the least embarrassed by their day.
Nico Hulkenberg (P15): 5/10
As with his Haas team mate Kevin Magnussen, Nico Hulkenberg had flashes of form in Barcelona but overall the heavy tyre degradation of the Haas presented too serious an issue to overcome when it came to putting together the longer runs needed to achieve good results. Hulkenberg was third quickest at the end of Friday's practice, and was fifth fastest at the end of the first round of qualifying before successfully making it through to the final top ten pole shoot-out. In the end he managed to secure P8 which was upgraded to P7 on the grid after Pierre Gasly's grid penalties for impeding. That meant he should have been in the running for a point or two on Sunday, although having the likes of Sergio Perez, George Russell and Charles Leclerc starting behind him was a cautionary warning. Russell did indeed ambush him on the first lap, and then his tyres fell off a cliff and Hulkenberg was already down to 11th by the time be was forced to pit on lap 8. The mediums didn't suit him, but a second stop on lap 26 and a change to hards produced better results and he made up a bunch of places to briefly peak in tenth - before the tyres died again, forcing a third stop on lap 43. In a race with no retirements, no accidents, no safety cars or red flags, you can't get away with three-stopping at Barcelona and hope to be in the points.
