Max Verstappen, Red Bull (P10): 6/10
The defending Champion would have a higher score, were it not for his questionable antics at the end of the race. But let’s start at the beginning. Verstappen got off the line better than Norris, passing the McLaren and holding him up for a few laps. But he and the team quickly realised that they couldn’t hold a candle to the Papaya cars ahead, and opted for an unorthodox three-stop strategy which saw the Dutchman briefly hold the lead of the Grand Prix. Pitting more often meant Verstappen had to make moves on track, and he duly delivered with beautiful overtakes on the likes of Antonelli, Russell and Leclerc. He looked set for third place but the late Safety Car ruined his momentum, and he was forced to come in for a fresh set of hard tyres when those around him came in for the much faster soft tyre. Verstappen did well to avoid spinning his RB21 on the restart, but lost a position to Leclerc on the main straight. Russell tried to follow the Monegasque through, but clattered into the side of the Red Bull driver and pushed the latter into the escape road. When Verstappen’s race engineer told him to let Russell through to concede position, tensions boiled over, prompting the Dutchman to intentionally ram into Russell on lap 64 of the Grand Prix. For this he received a ten-second penalty, demoting him from fifth to tenth.
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin (P9): 8/10
Alonso finally got what he had been deserving for quite some time: points! Once again the Spaniard did well to get himself into Q3, but a lacklustre start saw the home hero drop out of a points-paying position on the opening lap. It got even worse when he went wide into the gravel at Turn 5 on lap 13. But from that point onwards the veteran locked in, performing moves on Colapinto, Sainz and Bearman and wrestling an AMR25 that looked like a real handful on the onboard cameras. He put on a fresh set of soft tyres when the Safety Car came out, and passed a few more cars in the closing stages to climb up into tenth, which became ninth after Verstappen’s penalty.
