Oscar Piastri (P6, 8 pts): 7/10
Oscar Piastri was on an upward trajectory heading through practice at Abu Dhabi, ending up in third place in FP3. He struggled to put the perfect lap together in qualifying and flirted with elimination when he was tenth in Q2. But it all came together in the final round and he ended up third fastest again, confirming that the peculiar drop in form that McLaren experienced in Vegas was now firmly behind them. Even so, a lack of race distance runs up to this point meant he struggled in the opening laps on Sunday. He was picked off by Lando Norris on lap 3, George Russell on lap 11 and Yuki Tsunoda on lap 13 as he made his first pit stop of the evening. After moving to the hard tyres, he then lost out to Sergio Perez on lap 28. But in the final stint he had his revenge on Tsunoda to move back into sixth which is where he stayed until the chequered flag. "When you start third you're inevitably disappointed to finish sixth. Perhaps I could have done a little better," he admitted."But hey, I'm finishing my first year of F1 with a clean race!" Quite right - can't argue with that.
Lando Norris (P5, 10 pts): 7.5/10
Lando Norris was not happy after qualifying, and his main target for criticism was - as always - himself. A wild slide on his final qualifying lap had cost him his chance of a front row starting spot - maybe even a pole - and left him lining up on the grid in a slightly undercooked fifth. But all that was behind him on Sunday when he quickly got ahead of George Russell at the start of the race and then picked off his own team mate Oscar Piastri to move up to third. Unfortunately his first pit stop on lap 14 allowed Russell to take advantage of the undercut, and there was nothing Norris could do about it. He was still in fourth behind Russell after the second round of stops when Sergio Perez came roaring up from behind and bludgeoned him out of the way. "I try to let the guy pass and he hits me," Norris complained. "It was reckless on his part!" Fortunately no damage was done, but while Perez was handed a five second penalty for causing the collision it didn't stop the Red Bull from being classified ahead of Norris. Even so, the combined success of Norris and Piastri on Sunday secured P4 for McLaren in the constructors' championship from Aston Martin, a huge achievement given how bad things had looked in the dark days before Austria.
