George Russell (P16): 8/10
The big question in deciding a rating for George Russell is just how big a sanction to impose for that split second mistake and last lap accident. Russell himself said that it overshadowed his entire weekend, which is hard to argue. But does that mean deducting a whole point? Two? Five? If he'd held it together then we'd probably be talking about at least a nine for all his excellent work in practice where he went from P6 to P3 to P2, and then secured a front row spot alongside Carlos Sainz (just 0.072s off pole!) It's understandable that he lost out to Charles Leclerc at the start of the race - Ferrari's soft tyre strategy was designed explicitly for that purpose - and Lewis Hamilton took a liberty going off track to pass him. But once that was sorted, Russell couldn't do anything about passing Leclerc until the pit stops, and was similarly stymied by Sainz in the second stint forcing Mercedes to rely on a post-VSC alternate strategy that left Russell under too much pressure in the closing laps.
Fernando Alonso (P15): 6.5/10
Something of a messy weekend for Fernando Alonso who was perhaps feeling a bit lonely out there after his Aston Martin team mate Lance Stroll withdrew from the race following a big crash in qualifying. Solidly in the top ten in Friday's practice sessions, it was no surprise to see Alonso make it through to the final round of qualifying although P7 was slightly lacklustre given that both Red Bulls were out of the picture by then. In the race, a rookie error cutting the pit entry line left him with a five second penalty - particularly bad news in Singapore where DRS trains were everywhere you looked - and a problem with the rear jack compounded his problems even before he inadvertently took to the run off. His first pointless race of 2023 means he's dropped ten points behind Lewis Hamilton on the drivers championship.
