Lance Stroll (P14): 5.5/10
Not the best outing for Aston Martin, which had just opened its new state of the art headquarters and factory facility across the road from Silverstone. But while 'not the best' for Fernando Alonso translated to a solid top ten run and some valuable championship points, for Lance Stroll it meant barely featuring all weekend. After running in to the top ten on Friday he dropped to P13 in final practice which proved an accurate indicator of his qualifying form, where he missed the cut at the end of Q2 and ended up 12th on the grid for Sunday's race. He made up a place on the first lap but lost it again on lap 12 when Sergio Perez came calling. Having started on the medium tyres he ran a lengthy first stint but pitted on lap 31, just slightly too early to benefit from the safety car for Kevin Magnussen's retirement. He got the jump on Pierre Gasly at the restart and the pair had a lengthy battle over 11th place which eventually went Stroll's way, but there was contact in the process and he was handed a five second penalty after the race which dropped him from 11th to 14th. He wasn't happy about it: "He knocks me out twice when I try to overtake him, so tell me why I'm the one who gets five seconds penalty?"
Nico Hulkenberg (P13): 6.5/10
There were signs of promise for Nico Hulkenberg at Silverstone, but they gradually fizzled out as the weekend went on. At least for once, the main talking point wasn't about the VF-23's appetite for eating through its tyres. Hulkenberg and his team mate Kevin Magnussen were the slowest cars in first practice; while the German bounced back to P7 in the afternoon he was in the doldrums again in the rain on Saturday. In the circumstances it was a surprise to see Hulkenberg survive the first round of qualifying, and he actually came close to going the distance before just falling short at the end of Q2 and having to settle for 11th on the grid. Starting on the hard tyres meant he was immediately passed by Lance Stroll, Esteban Ocon and Yuki Tsunoda on the opening lap, then it was Sergio Perez' turn on lap 5 in which there was contact. "He attacks me at the exit of turn 4, we touch each other and a large part of the front wing comes off. I had to go back [to the pits] and change wings and put on the mediums much earlier than planned, which ruined my strategy." He spent much of the rest of the race well behind the field until the safety car allowed him to catch up, and a switch to softs gave him the chance to make gains on Zhou Guanyu, Nyck de Vries and Yuki Tsunoda to finish in 14th place, which was subsequently upgraded to P13 by Lance Stroll's penalty.
