Sergio Perez (P4, 12 pts): 7/10
Okay, so Sergio Perez battled his way to fourth place in tricky conditions. Not bad, right? Well ... Yes and no. For one thing there's the question of the gap between himself and Red Bull team mate Max Verstappen, which started at over four tenths on Friday and then extended to a full second in FP3 before opening out to 1.3s in the final round of qualifying, a disparity between the pair that had people talking in the paddock. It left Perez in seventh place on the grid, once again seemingly too far out of position to help Verstappen at the front. In fact that was turned on its head by the rain at the start of the race, Perez pitting immediately for intermediates and emerging with a big lead while Verstappen delayed and ended up almost 15s behind. Verstappen soon ate up that gap (Perez suggested he was managing his inters on a drying track; team boss Christian Horner seemed to think he had simply blown his opportunity) and the reigning world champion was first to be called in by the team for slicks allowing him to undercut Perez. Another example of favouritism, or the team just safeguarding against faster cars behind? Whichever, Perez seemed on his was to the podium in second before the rain returned and he was caught out, aqua-planing off at turn 1 and nudging the barrier before resuming in third behind Fernando Alonso. On top of that, water on pit lane contributed to a speeding penalty and meant he was classified in fourth place behind Pierre Gasly. We suspect that Dr Marko will have thoughts on this.
Pierre Gasly (P3, 15 pts): 8.5/10
Alpine's previous race in Belgium had been overshadowed by the cull of its senior management, so the team really needed to return from the summer break with some encouraging success in Zandvoort. Of the two drivers, Pierre Gasly looked like the more likely to deliver from the start. He finished Friday practice in sixth place and went into qualifying with reasonable expectation of making it into the final round - only to fall short by a slender six hundredths of a second and end up occupying 12th on the grid. However he was one of those to jump at the chance of switching to intermediates tyres as soon as the rain started to fall on the first lap of the race, and that was the making of him as he jumped up to third behind Sergio Perez and Zhou Guanyu. While he quickly dispatched the Alfa Romeo, he was himself passed by Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso before the rain stopped and everyone pitted for a return to slick tyres. The second scheduled round of pit stops saw him undercut by Carlos Sainz, and the pair were still tussling over fourth place when the rain resumed and the race red-flagged on lap 63. Gasly took the restart ahead of the Ferrari and just behind Perez: he was aware that the Mexican had been given a five second penalty for speeding on pit lane and all he needed to do was stay close to the back of the Red Bull to snatch the podium place away. He succeeded in doing to the delight of the Alpine crew that really needed this stroke of good (but deserved) fortune to celebrate.
