Lewis Hamilton (P6, 8 pts): 8/10
Watching Mercedes at the moment is like staring at a time-lapse of a tyre slowly deflating. You don't notice the air going out of things at the time in normal speed, but when viewed from race-to-race the problem is plain to see. Despite more upgrades for the W15 this week, the team fared little better and the sight of both Hamilton and George Russell missing the cut at the end of SQ2 in Sprint qualifying was really quite a shock. To his credit, Hamilton never gave up and continued to push hard (maybe too hard in the case of the first lap of the Sprint race, although it was a pit lane penalty that cost him points in the end). Although out-qualified by Russell for the Grand Prix, he had much the better start. Beginning on the hard compound, being passed by Nico Hulkenberg was an annoyance but he dealt with it on lap 10 and eventually inched his way up to sixth after Oscar Piastri's enforced extra pit stop for a new front wing. Overall was the drive of a champion driver in sub-optimal equipment.
Carlos Sainz (P5, 14 pts): 7/10
While not the worst of times for Carlos Sainz in Miami, it was still far from the high water mark of his victory in Australia. Despite spinning out and missing almost the whole of the single practice session, Charles Leclerc was noticeably faster than Sainz in every qualifying session and race that followed, and the last time we said that Sainz was up on the number of appendices he was carrying. In the Sprint he found himself unable to get the better of Daniel Ricciardo's RB. On Sunday he was annoyed when the teams rejected his request for team orders to allow him past Leclerc, and then he became locked into a feud with Oscar Piastri. His temper flared and the pair made contact on lap 39: Piastri suffered a broken front wing and Sainz received a five-second post-race penalty for causing the collision which cost him a place in the final classification.
