Carlos Sainz, Ferrari (Accident, Lap 52): 5/10
Ever since the heights of his win in Australia, Carlos Sainz has been on a downward trajectory. And the angle of descent got rather steeper this week with one of the Spaniard's worse weekends of the past year. Some of that can be explained by a peculiar slump in Ferrari's pace and performance as a whole, as witness the fact that Leclerc wasn't able to make it into the final round of qualifying on used softs either. But while the Monegasque did make some progress early on in the race despite power unit issues, Sainz simply seemed inert on Sunday. Much of it was spent stuck behind Alex Albon, and he'd just managed to pass the Williams when a wet kerb sent him spinning off, collecting Albon on the way. Painful all round.
Zhou Guanyu, Sauber (P15): 4.5/10
Zhou Guanyu is making a habit of finishing slowest of anyone in qualifying. A lot of the blame for that has to be set at the door of the Sauber C44 which is proving to be an acute disappointment in multiple respects this year. One can only hope that all the effort behind the scenes is focused on the start of the Audi era in 2026, because certainly there's nothing to show for it right now. Zhou didn't help himself with two accidents in FP1 and FP3 and in general he simply seemed out of his depth all weekend and particularly in the race, although he managed to keep himself sufficiently out of harm's way to get to the finish. That's something right? Even if it was a lap down and dead last.
