Lance Stroll (P6, 8 pts): 7.5/10
There's no measure by which Monaco wasn't a complete disaster for Lance Stroll. But the important thing is how a driver responds to such setbacks, and to his credit in Stroll's case he bounced back very well in Barcelona. After a subdued start on Friday, he survived a bit of a scare in the first round of qualifying but then flourished in the next two rounds to pick up a very creditable fifth place on the grid, out-qualifying his Aston Martin team mate Fernando Alonso for the first time (although admittedly that was because the underfloor of Alonso's car had been damaged by a run-off early in Q1). When the lights went out on Sunday, Stroll managed to pull off a rather deft pass on Lewis Hamilton into the first corner while the Mercedes driver was distracted by his clash with Lando Norris, and suddenly Stroll was in a potential podium spot. That was never really likely to happen - Hamilton had his revenge on lap 8, and George Russell forced his way past six laps past - but Stroll was still in the top five after the initial round of pit stops. He inevitably lost out to Perez in the final stint, which saw Alonso draw up to his rear wing. The two-time champion could have appealed for team orders to put him in front, but this is the nicer, kinder, fluffier Alonso who saw no point in rocking the boat for the sake of a position when a podium wasn't involved, and so the pair flew in formation to the finish.
Carlos Sainz (P5, 10 pts): 8/10
Safe to say that Carlos Sainz was the best of the Ferrari drivers this weekend, but you may detect a hint of 'damning with faint praise' in that description because this was a troublingly weak performance from the team that were supposed to be in contention for this year's championship and yet are looking further away every race. They brought new parts to the track this week but it didn't seem to do much for them. Sainz and his team mate Charles Leclerc were bumping along near the bottom of the top ten in Friday practice, but Sainz enjoyed himself in the wet final session and bounced into qualifying with confidence sufficient to see him snatch a front row starting spot alongside Max verstappen. Whatever was ailing Leclerc was clearly not a factor for the Spaniard who lapped up the cheers from the home fans (those not already fervently committed to Fernando Alonso, anyway). But when it came to the race it was a familiar story: that single lap pace ebbed away and after challenging into the first corner, Sainz found himself unable to keep pace with Verstappen and had to worry instead about the fast-closing Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton. Sainz pitted for mediums on lap 15 while Hamilton made his last until lap 24, and that meant that Hamilton was on much fresher tyres when he came back out and duly found it easy to pick off Sainz within a few laps. George Russell had a similar advantage when he pushed past on lap 34. Another six laps and it was Sergio Perez' turn to find his way through. Sainz pitted again on lap 41 for a final set of hard tyres to see him to the finish knowing he had a tidy lead over Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso, but no chance of catching those ahead.
