Nicholas Latifi (P16): 4.5/10
Nicholas Latifi looked to have made huge strides with Williams during 2021, but that performance gradually melted away toward the end of the season. The situation seems to have declined over the off-season and it would be easy to suggest that without George Russell's presence the team lacks a strong leader to help drive them forward. Bahrain was certainly a bruising start to the new season for the team and for Latifi in particular. He came off looking distinctly second best to new team mate Alex Albon throughout practice and qualifying. He started in last place but picked up two spots on the first lap, and for much of the race ended up scrapping over the wooden spoon with Daniel Ricciardo, Lando Norris and Nico Hulkenberg. That's not actually bad company to be mixing in, but it doesn't gloss over just how uncompetitive the new FW44 was on its debut (and the McLaren, and the Aston Martin).
Lando Norris (P15): 6.5/10
After the first pre-season test in Barcelona, everyone was talking up McLaren as potential title contenders. But the problematic second test turned that on its head, and this weekend confirmed that Bahrain are bumping around somewhere near the bottom in the early 2022 pecking order. Even so, I don't think anyone expected the team to do quite as badly as this in the season opener: Lando Norris didn't make it into the top ten in any of the practice or qualifying sessions, although he did consistently beat team mate Daniel Ricciardo and made it to the second round of qualifying to start from P13. However, the team's attempts to find a tyre strategy to get them out of this hole backfired badly. Stuck on hard tyres for the second stint, he lost ground and crossed the line behind Ricciardo feeling throughly disenchanted: "We gave it our all today, but it's just not enough at the moment."
