Zhou Guanyu (P16): 6/10
Zhou Guanyu disappeared into the background at the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve so thoroughly that he might as well have been wearing full combat camouflage wear. We're sure he was out there somewhere, it's just that we could never actually see him when we went looking. His one starring moment of the weekend was at the start of qualifying where the Alfa Romeo crawled out of pit lane with no drive or power as anti-stall ran riot. Although he did eventually get going, he inevitably missed the first cut and ended up starting Sunday's race from dead last on the grid. He gained a place at the end of the first lap when Yuki Tsunoda made a strategic early pit stop, while Zhou himself opted to pit under the early safety car to exchange mediums for hards. That left him stuck in P14 until his second stop which dropped him to the back again, and he made little progress from then on, spending the afternoon in large part as the meat in a Haas sandwich. "Unfortunately the race didn't unfold in the way we needed, and after the final pit stop there wasn't much we could do."
Nico Hulkenberg (P15): 6/10
Like his team mate Kevin Magnussen, Nico Hulkenberg had flashes of form but was ultimately let down by the Haas' inability to run long distances without suffering from aggressive tyre degradation. He also had the added setback of an engine fire just half an hour into the extended second practice on Friday which cost him set-up time, but he bounced back on Saturday morning and then staged the out-of-nowhere coup of finishing qualifying second quickest. Admittedly that was rather down to lucky timing with a red flag stopping others from completing push laps before the rain really started to come down, but it was still a moment to celebrate and Haas' best qualifying since Brazil when Kevin Magnussen scored pole for the sprint race in Sao Paulo. Unfortunately Hulkenberg didn't get to start from the front row after all and was demoted to P5 by the stewards for a red flag infringement. To be honest, it wouldn't have mattered: when the race got underway on Sunday it was clear that Hulkenberg didn't have the pace to keep up with the company in which he found himself, and it was in his words "a one-way street in the wrong direction" as he plummeted down the order from that point on.
