Daniel Ricciardo, RB (P8, 4 pts): 8/10
Its becoming increasingly clear that there is no way back to the top of F1 for Daniel Ricciardo, and that even a return to Red Bull is now pretty much out of the picture. Even so, the savaging he got from the never knowingly uncontroversial Jacques Villeneuve together with the announcement that Tsunoda's contract had been renewed for 2025 but that his had not (for now at least) was not a happy state of affairs for the Aussie. So he responded to the bad news in typical Honey Badger fashion, by smashing it out of the park with a terrific performance in qualifying that saw him starting the race on the third row of the grid. It looked like this had all been for naught when he lost multiple positions in the opening laps (both RBs have been shocking at starts recently) and additionally got penalised for creeping out of his box before the lights went out. That put him out of the top ten, but the second safety car and multiple retirements came to his aid and he successfully battled back to take his first points since the Miami sprint.
Lance Stroll, Aston Martin (P7, 6 pts): 7.5/10
It's remarkable how often Lance Stroll's best races come at weekends when we barely even notice he's in town. It's like he engages a cloaking device when he's got his head down and at his most determined to get on with things. And he was certainly motivated this weekend for his home race, putting in a top three performance in FP2 and fourth in FP3 making it a slam dunk that he would get through to the final round of qualifying and start Sunday's race in the top ten. When the lights went out he slotted in between Daniel Ricciardo and Charles Leclerc for the opening stint, and got the timing of his pit stops during the two safety car periods spot on. He ran in eighth place for much of the afternoon and got a promotion on lap 52 when Yuki Tsunoda spun out of position, leaving Stroll following his team leader Fernando Alonso to the flag. A composed, quiet, drama-free performance from the Canadian in what had been a wild and crazy affair for many others.
