Sergio Perez (P6, 8 pts): 5/10
The problem we have with Sergio Perez this week is that despite a solid comeback effort on Sunday, his qualifying campaign was pretty dismal. For a Red Bull to fail to make it through to the second round, even in such difficult and unpredictable conditions as we saw on Saturday, is pretty inexcusable in the absence of a major incident or technical failure. Quite why things are going so badly wrong for Perez in qualifying at the moment is a matter of mystery to us all, including the team and the man himself. And while he did well to gain nine places during the race, finishing in sixth is on the low end of what we would have expected from the car even in these compromised circumstances. If Max had been starting from so far back, he would still have been contending for the win by midrace, but Perez was up to six tenths slower than his team mate on Sunday. Getting knocked wide by Esteban Ocon at the start was one reason why it was such hard work; but as Perez himself summarised afterward, "in short nothing really worked".
George Russell (P5, 10 pts): 8/10
George Russell shared Mercedes' general sense of frustration and disappointment at the end of Friday practice in which he failed to make it into the top ten in either session. It seemed that all those recent upgrades improvements had proved a mirage. He was ninth in final practice which was an accurate indicator that he would make the final round of qualifying, but it was a very close-run thing at times. Surprisingly he ended up just ahead of his team mate on the grid, when it seemed that Lewis Hamilton had been looking the stronger of the pair coming into the session. Russell gambled on starting the race itself on the soft compound which should have meant an early first stop, and possibly a second stop on top, but it didn't turn out that way. He was able to run 28 laps before pitting, further than both Ferraris and beyond half race distance meaning it was possible to take the mediums for the second stint and know he would make it to the finish. If not for the timing of the safety car, Russell would have finished ahead of Hamilton, but even then he would probably have just missed the podium this week.
