Nico Hulkenberg (P14): 6.5/10
The brightest thing about Nico Hulkenberg's weekend was his Barbie-inspired bottle-blond hair, which rivalled Daniel Ricciardo's ear-to-ear grin for mega-wattage visible from orbit. He had a few shining moments on track as well, finishing sixth in FP2 after a rain-hit first session, and then fourth fastest in final practice before a strong showing in qualifying that saw him confidently through to the final round and into the top ten on Sunday's grid. Unfortunately it's the same old story for Haas: decent on single lap runs, but showing absolutely no stamina when it comes to the race. He was able to stay in P9 for his first stint on mediums, but not even hard tyres for the rest of the race could do enough to keep him in the points after that. He spent the latter half of the race trailing Daniel Ricciardo while fending off Logan Sargeant behind, with everyone pretty much pinned in place within a long DRS train. Despite his best efforts he was just 14th at the line and among a group of eight cars to have been lapped by race winner Max Verstappen.
Daniel Ricciardo (P13): 7.5/10
Daniel Ricciardo's return to frontline Formula 1 with AlphaTauri was the big story of the weekend in Hungary, and while it might not have been an entirely dream success it was certainly pretty solid from the Aussie in his 233rd Grand Prix start. After finding his feet and settling into his new surroundings on Friday, he was already quicker than his new team mate Yuki Tsunoda in final practice and went on to make the cut at the end of the first round of qualifying, which is more than the Japanese driver was able to do on hard tyres. Starting the race from 13th, Ricciardo was caught up in a multi-car incident on the first lap which put both Alpines out while dropping to the back. Staying out until lap 18 on his initial set of mediums helped him claw back some positions, but once he pitted he found himself dead last again. Not liking his replacement hard tyres, he was back on the medium compound early on lap 29 and attempting a long 40-lap closing stint which actually proved to be a canny call. It allowed him to work his way up to 13th on the tail of Valtteri Bottas, with Nico Hulkenberg and Logan Sargeant shadowing him in a long and frustrating DRS train to the finish. But most importantly, he had successfully made a statement by finishing ahead of Tsunoda.
