Sergio Perez (P6, Fastest lap, 9 pts): 6.5/10
Sergio Perez had such a brilliant start to the season and for a while appeared to be our last, best hope for a thrilling championship battle in 2023. But the most recent races have seen him pale into insignificance, and while he's still second in the championship standings to his Red Bull team mate Max Verstappen he is now 69 points in arrears and there is no chance of him being able (or allowed) to claw that back and put his team leader under any pressure in the title fight. Perez' Achilles heel is qualifying, and that once again pulled him down this weekend in Canada: he had been lukewarm in the cool wet conditions of practice, and then missed the cut at the end of the second round of qualifying. It left him lining up in 12th place on the grid behind the two Ferraris that had suffered a similar setback. Perez started on the hard tyre with a plan to go long, but this was undermined by Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz on the quicker medium tyres managing to go even longer ahead of him. There was simply no way through and by the end, Perez was only able to meekly cross the line in an unremarkable and unmemorable sixth place.
Carlos Sainz (P5, 10 pts): 6.5/10
Carlos Sainz actually had a pretty strong weekend for the most part, but we can't overlook the mess he made of blocking other cars in practice and most egregiously impeding Pierre Gasly in the first round of qualifying for which he received a three place grid drop from the stewards. Sainz blamed it on a lack of confidence having crashed in final practice leaving the Ferrari crew scrambling to repair the damage in time for Q1, but that's not really a great excuse. It may explain however why Sainz was peculiarly passive during the race in Sunday. Starting from P12 right behind his team mate Charles Leclerc, he knew he had to bide his time as both of them were attempting a super-long first stint on medium tyres and had to be extra cautious about tyre degradation, or the whole strategy would be out of the window. Accordingly, Leclerc was assured that Sainz would not be trying to pass him on the first stint. The surprise was when the same guarantee was given after they made their stops on lap 38 and 39. Sainz once again appeared content to just follow in Leclerc's pit stop and focus on making sure they were not under attack from Sergio Perez behind them. While it's hard to criticise a strategy that rewarded Ferrari with two solid, drama-free points finishes today, there was a lack of ambition on the part of the team as a whole and Sainz in particular that we found surprising.
