Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes (P8, 4 pts): 8/10
Lewis Hamilton's fate was effectively sealed by a nightmare time in qualifying. A mistake on his final run in Q2 meant he was caught out by a flurry of late improvements from others and he missed the second cut. Then he was demoted a further three places for impeding Sergio Perez during the session (the stewards must have seen something we didn't). It was a shame, because both Mercedes drivers had been looking in strong form again in practice up to that point with three wins in the last four races, two for Hamilton (at Silverstone and Spa). To help him recover from P14 on the grid, the team tried a two-stop strategy starting him on soft tyres to overcome the W15's oddly poor straight line speed. While initially thwarted by traffic, the compound proved better and more durable than expected, and Hamilton had a lot of fun carving his way past some quality cars on his way to the points. If not for that qualifying disaster, he would surely have been in the running for a podium this weekend.
George Russell, Mercedes (P7, 6 pts): 7.5/10
George Russell's weekend was almost the inverse of that of his Mercedes team mate. Both men had a solid time in qualifying and George Russell was quickest of anyone at the end of Friday giving him every hope and expectation of a good result. He delivered in qualifying with a spot on the second row, while Lewis Hamilton was in all sorts of trouble. The start of the race also went well for Russell as he immediately climbed into a podium position within sight of race leaders Max Verstappen and Lando Norris. And then it all went to pieces: despite pitting on the lap immediately after Charles Leclerc he ended up losing a place to the Ferrari. Then he got picked off by Oscar Piastri. Then the team made the odd call to switch him to a two-stop strategy and soft tyres on lap 54 which dropped him behind Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez. It was a bad decision, one that left Russell scratching his head about just where all that pre-race promise had gone.
