Yuki Tsunoda, RB (P14): 6.5/10
In hindsight perhaps it wasn't a good idea for RB to announce Yuki Tsunoda's contract extension for 2025 just minutes before the start of qualifying, because it's the kind of distraction that can knock a driver off his rhythm if they're not careful. That said, he still got through to the final round, although for once he was slower than his under-fire team mate Daniel Ricciardo. Neither of them had a great start to the race on Sunday and Tsunoda dropped four places over the course of the first two laps, after which he settled in behind Charles Leclerc and shadowed the Ferrari and then Alex Albon until the first safety car. He opted not to pit and ended up completing 44 laps on the intermediates, but struggled on the replacement slicks and spun out of ninth place with five laps to go. He recovered but limped home out of the points, a rare misfire for Yuki in 2024.
Valtteri Bottas, Sauber (P13): 5.5/10
Something is obviously not going right at Sauber. If it was just Zhou Guanyu who was struggling then you'd put it down to driver issues, but Valtteri Bottas is no more able to wring anything out of the car than his Chinese team mate, for all his years of experience in F1. It's pretty much killing his career and any hopes of staying with the squad when it morphs into Audi are dwindling. Even the changeable conditions couldn't level the playing field enough for him to survive the first cut in qualifying - not that it mattered, as Sauber then worked on the car overnight resulting in a pit lane start for both drivers. Bottas made steady progress once the lights went out, eschewing a chance to pit under the safety car and staying out till lap 41 but it made little overall impact and he spent much of the second half of the race marooned in the bottom three, all dressed up with no where to go.
