Charles Leclerc (P4, 17 pts): 8/10
Charles Leclerc hasn't been happy to be in the shade of his outgoing Ferrari team mate Carlos Sainz in recent weeks and headed to China with a grim determination to stake his claim as the lead driver. And that's pretty much what he did in Shanghai, proving quicker than Sainz in every session save for the atypical rain-hit Sprint qualifying. Unfortunately Ferrari as a whole was lacking something this weekend and not showing the sort of pace they had in the opening rounds, especially on the hard tyres. Before the race Lando Norris said he expected to be half a minute slower than the Ferrari cars, but instead he was able to stay comfortably ahead of them all afternoon. Unsurprisingly Leclerc said he was "not completely satisfied" with their performance this week.
Sergio Perez (P3, 21 pts): 8.5/10
It was a good all-round weekend for Sergio Perez in China. He showed solid pace throughout, although inevitably his team mate Max Verstappen was light years ahead of him - and everyone else, to be fair - when it mattered. But Perez was there or thereabouts when it mattered and he joined Verstappen on the front row of the grid on Sunday. Yet when it came to both the Sprint and the Grand Prix, Perez wasn't quite able to deliver his part of the expected Red Bull 1-2: in the former he ran out of time to catch Lewis Hamilton, and in the latter the timing of the safety cars left him running behind an in-form Lando Norris. Both situations were understandable and indeed forgivable, but it does leave you (and maybe Christian Horner) wondering whether someone else in that car could be doing even better.
