Oscar Piastri (P4, 12 pts): 8/10
Given Lando Norris' dominant display on Sunday, it's hard not to think that Oscar Piastri should have been on there on the podium next to him, ideally as part of a McLaren 1-2. After all, Piastri had been second quickest at the end of Friday practice and qualified for the race on the second row in P3 alongside George Russell. However when the lights went out, he dropped a spot to Russell although in fairness everyone on the outside line seemed to struggle with wheel spin. It shouldn't have been the end of the story for him - as Norris proved by making up his own dropped spot on Max Verstappen to retake the lead and win the race by a country mile - but Piastri didn't seem to have anything like the same pace. Being left out on ageing tyres until lap 33 certainly didn't help his cause. We presume McLaren expected that having fresh tyres for the final stint would make it easy for him to charge past Russell (tick) and Charles Leclerc. But after a period of pressure he ran out of steam and the Ferrari remained an immovable object, and Piastri wasn't on the podium after all. A lost opportunity for him, we think.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari (P3, 15 pts): 9/10
It was all doom and gloom for Ferrari throughout practice, with the Ferrari's performance issues after its troubled new floor upgrade introduced in Spain still very much in evidence. Charles Leclerc didn't try and hide his disappointment and frustration on Friday, and when he took sixth place in qualifying the relief was evident. He set his sights on simply keeping hold of that position in the race as being being the best outcome they could hope for. And then a funny thing happened on race day: the SF-24 that launched off the grid and immediately passed Sergio Perez was miles better than the car Leclerc had been struggling with 24 hours earlier. Suddenly he had the pace to take the battle to his rivals, and undercutting George Russell during the first round of pit stops put him into a potential podium finish. Perhaps the biggest surprise was the way he managed to fend off Oscar Piastri in the clearly faster McLaren all the way from lap 40 to the finish line. Leclerc wasn't the only one looking dazed and delighted by the way things had turned around for them.
