Franco Colapinto, Williams (P12): 7.5/10
Welcome to the Formula 1 party, Franco! And right off the bat, he settled in and impressed with a solid performance throughout the weekend that demonstrates why the change of driver at Williams was long overdue. Given how rapidly the move came about at the last minute before Monza, he did well to keep it together with just the odd harmless foray into the gravel over the weekend. Give the young Argentinian a few weeks and he could be following in his team mate's foot steps into the points, and that's not something we could ever say with a straight face about Logan Sargeant. Colapinto only has eight races in the car before he has to hand over the keys to Carlos Sainz for 2024, but if he produces further composed, considered performances like this over the rest of the year then he could put himself firmly on the map for a more extended stay on the F1 grid in the future.
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin (P11): 6.5/10
Aston Martin continued to flounder in the doldrums this season. When not even Fernando Alonso can overcome a Haas and a Williams to get into the points, you know things are not at all well at the team. It's not as though it was a particularly bad weekend for the two-time champion: he was in the top ten on Friday only to slip outside in final practice and qualifying, lining up in P11 on the grid. Normally that would produce a point or two on Sunday afternoon, but the AMR24 simply didn't seem to have any life in it when it came to race pace where Alonso had to rely on used sets of soft and hard tyres throughout. He gained a place at the start due to Nico Hulkenberg's clash with Daniel Ricciardo but his second pit stop on lap 36 dropped him to 14th. There wasn't enough time left to battle his way back into the points before the chequered flag. In many ways it would have been better if there had been something - a mistake, an accident, a technical failure - for the team to point to rather than just this sense of general malaise that's set in.
