Kevin Magnussen (P16): 7/10
When you start from pit lane and find yourself in seventh place a dozen laps later, you're clearly doing something right. Friday had been lacklustre for Kevin Magnussen and he oddly opted to pretty much sit out the whole of the wet final practice in the misguided belief that the rest of the weekend would be pretty dry. The lack of experience in inclement conditions at Zandvoort likely put him on the back foot in qualifying, where he missed the first cut leaving him in 18th. The team took the opportunity to make extensive changes to the VF-23 overnight, breaking parc ferme conditions meaning he would start from pit lane. Given the sudden downpour the minute the lights went out, this turned out to be no bad thing and he pitted at the end of the first lap for a rapid switch to inters that propelled him into the top ten. He quickly reverted to slicks when the rain stopped and was P7 by the time the safety car was scrambled for Logan Sargeant's accident. Pretty smart, savvy driving by the Dane. Unfortunately at that point the Haas' renowned tendency to demolish its tyres took hold and he was soon tumbling back down the order, pitting again on lap 35 for mediums which at least saw him through to the second downpour and red flag. He took the restart at the back and there was too little time to do anything other than pick off Valtteri Bottas before the chequered flag. A five second post-race penalty for failing to keep within the required distance behind the safety car dropped him two places in the final classification.
Yuki Tsunoda (P15): 7/10
Yuki Tsunoda was both hero and zero this week. He had a good run in the dry in Friday practice and was in the top ten in both sessions, an achievement somewhat overlooked amid the drama of his AlphaTauri team mate Daniel Ricciardo injuring himself in an accident and being ruled out of taking part in the rest of the weekend. Tsunoda was now once again emphatically in charge as lead driver over newbie Liam Lawson, but he was only able to make it into the second round of qualifying where he was 14th fastest. However he had impeded Lewis Hamilton during Q2 and got served a three place grid penalty, meaning he actually started Sunday's race from P17. He got an early boost from the early rain and pit stops and came out of the chaos in eighth; when the conditions dried up he tried to make an extended run on slicks, which worked for a time (he peaked in fourth on lap 47) but thereafter the soft tyres faded fast and he was picked off by the likes of Carlos Sainz, Pierre Gasly, George Russell, Alex Albon, Esteban Ocon and then in a single lap by Lando Norris, Lewis Hamilton and Oscar Piastri. The game was up. The second downpour, red flag and 'free' change back to inters came too late; he crossed the line in 13th but got hit with a penalty for causing a collision which dumped him to 15th in the final classification.
