Carlos Sainz, Ferrari (P6, 8 pts): 7.5/10
Ferrari are still struggling to find where their early season form has gone. It doesn't look as though the search has come up with any answers judging from their time in Spa. They were still off the pace of Red Bull and McLaren and now find themselves behind Mercedes as well. As for Carlos Sainz, he trailed Charles Leclerc in practice (and sat out the wet FP3 entirely) and was only eighth in qualifying when Leclerc put himself on the front row and inherited pole from Max Verstappen. Sainz took a gamble by starting on the hard tyre, and the long first stint paid dividends when he led the race for seven laps. Sadly it all went wrong after that with a truncated second stint on softs. At least a rapid return to the hard compound allowed him to pick off a lacklustre Sergio Perez on lap 39.
Lando Norris, McLaren (P5, 10 pts): 7/10
After last week's drama in Hungary, with all the controversy over the way he complied with McLaren team orders to hand over a certain win to Oscar Piastri, it would be understandable if Lando Norris felt a bit flat in Spa. Although he pipped Piastri to top FP2, it never felt as though Norris was on top form or in best spirits this weekend. The team's decision to sacrifice some wet qualifying performance to stick with its dry set-up was a sensible one, but it was undone by yet another poor race start for Norris who ran wide out of La Source and lost multiple positions he was never able to retrieve, resulting in what became a prolonged battle with Max Verstappen who was recovering from P11. That said, the sense that fifth is a bad day at the office shows just how far and how fast McLaren's expectations have skyrocketed in 2024.
