Yuki Tsunoda (P12): 7/10
Star of the show this weekend, at least as far as the ever-enthusiastic Japanese fans in the grandstands were concerned, it's a shame that Yuki Tsunoda wasn't able to make the most of his home advantage to finish in the points. He did manage to out-do his current team mate Liam Lawson and make it through to final round of qualifying - you could tell, because the roar from the crowd was deafening. It was one important tick on his to-do list, in the week that he and Daniel Ricciardo ere confirmed as the team's 2024 drivers leaving Lawson out in the cold. However when the lights went out on Sunday it was Lawson who got the better start and darted ahead of Tsunoda. The positions were inverted at the first round of pit stops, but at the next Lawson managed to undercut his team mate and get back in front; Tsunoda could do nothing about it but follow him to the finish.
Liam Lawson (P11): 7.5/10
This is potentially Liam Lawson's final appearance in the AlphaTauri. He'll have been disappointed by the confirmation that he won't be racing full time in F1 next season but relegated back to reserve status. What does a driver have to do to get a seat around here? Lawson has emphatically done everything the team has asked him to, including winning points for them in Singapore in only his third F1 outing, and this week we finally got to see how he compared with Yuki Tsunoda head-to-head in a full length race. The answer was that he came out on top, jumping ahead of the local hero at the start and then using the undercut to secure his advantage on lap 31 after which it was 'just' a matter of making no mistakes and giving his team mate no openings to exploit in the remaining 20 laps. It's a shame he narrowly missed out on points, although that might have been a little too embarrassing for the team that had just passed on his services for 2024.
