Carlos Sainz (Power unit, P18): 6/10
There have been some bright spots in 2023 where Carlos Sainz was clearly the best Ferrari driver on show. This was not one of those weekends. His crash early in second practice was the turning point: the car never seemed the same after that, which is odd given that the previous week Ferrari had rebuilt a much more seriously damaged car in a matter of hours which had enabled Sainz to join Charles Leclerc on the front row in qualifying the following day. This time, Sainz was dead last in final practice and missed the first cut in qualifying after problems with his wing and traffic in pit exit and on his flying run. There was little chance of recovering from there in the race. He expressed open surprise when he was put on hard tyres for the start - "every time we've done it this season, it's never worked". What he really needed was a well-timed safety car for his second stop, but it never came. Sainz should have finished in 11th but a power unit issue meant he didn't complete the final lap and was classified in 18th ahead of the two lapped cars.
Zhou Guanyu (P17): 5.5/10
It's not been a great sophomore season for Zhou Guanyu, but then he simply hasn't had the equipment to really deliver anything better. He was stood down in first practice in favour of Théo Pourchaire, but was seventh in FP2. Unfortunately by the time he got to qualifying, mistakes on his flying laps meant Zhou was unable to make it past the first cut and so he lined up on the back row of the grid on Sunday as a result, just behind his team mate Valtteri Bottas. The Finn was on a one-stop strategy that didn't work, while Zhou was on the two-stopper deemed more favourable. That didn't work either. Zhou said he wasn't overly surprised by the lack of pace, and added: "At least we went out there and tried everything we could". That sounds like a particularly sad and rather haunting way to sign off the end of the season.
