Lewis Hamilton (Retired on lap 15, Power unit): 5/10
By Lewis Hamilton's own admission, this was a terrible weekend for Mercedes and for himself in particular. Nothing seemed to go right. An experiment trying out a dramatic shift in the set-up of the W15 left him down in 18th place among the 19 cars taking part in FP2. He looked back up to speed in final practice but then failed to make the final cut in qualifying for the first time in Melbourne since 2010. He tried to run a different strategy to the majority of drivers in the race itself and started on softs, but it didn't really pay off and he was still only P11 by the time all the initial pit stops had cycled through. Whether he had anything else planned will remain forever unknown as the Mercedes power unit then died on him, leaving Hamilton back in pit lane watching Sainz win the race, and no doubt hoping that next year that will be him once installed at Ferrari.
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George Russell (P17, Accident): 5.5/10
Just how hard should we be on George Russell for crashing out on the last lap while in the running for a top six finish? On the one hand it's become rather a pattern for the British driver, which was understandable as a rookie in the past but unforgivable now he is heir-in-waiting to the Mercedes throne. At the same time, the stewards who looked into the accident clearly felt that Fernando Alonso was to blame, so maybe we should be lenient toward him on this occasion. However we look at it, Russell was definitely the better of the two Mercedes drivers throughout the weekend, so we'll slot him in ahead of Hamilton and leave it at that. But please, no more accidents like this in future if you want to be taken seriously as a potential championship contender, George.
