This is part of a series of articles I will write during the year, to highlight some of the best performances of the weekend. I originally considered ranking all of the drivers, but wanted to keep this series positive, so am only focusing on the best performances F1 had to offer. Thus, in no particular order, five standouts from the weekend.

1. Max Verstappen-

What more can be said about Verstappen? On a weekend where I had some hope of a Ferrari challenge, Max went and achieved a grand slam. He drove a car not dominant in qualifying to pole position, then drove away from the field, setting a fastest lap 1.4 seconds faster than anyone else. Verstappen deserves an endless amount of respect for his performances and I expect he’ll feature a lot in this series throughout this year. Perez also performed well, using the natural pace of that Red Bull to finish second, but Max was still 22 seconds ahead of him. Utter domination.

2. Carlos Sainz-

Sainz maximized his opportunities on Saturday. While his teammate suffered from brake issues and the Mercedes’ had cooling problems, Sainz still needed to overtake several cars to secure his place on the podium. He duly delivered a daring drive, with his moves on his teammate being particularly tenacious. If Carlos wants to get himself the best possible drive for 2025, he certainly started the season on the right foot.

3. Charles Leclerc-

Consistent brake issues meant Charles was lacking in pace compared to Carlos. We were robbed of seeing Charles at his best. But a 90% performance from Charles is still a gold star performance. Despite visibly awful issues, with a car that could barely turn right without locking up, Charles only finished 14 seconds behind his teammate and was comfortably ahead of the Mercedes powered cars. He even set the second fastest lap of the race. Most drivers who had the issues Charles faced this weekend would not have maximized their performance like this. The fact that Charles did provides me with hope that, when he has a fully working car underneath him, Charles can take the fight to the Red Bulls.

4. George Russell-

With so much talk and headlines involving Mercedes focusing on Lewis Hamilton, it becomes hard to remember that they have two top drivers. George Russell duly reminded me on Saturday, delivering when his teammate struggled. Russell qualified ahead of a Red Bull and a Ferrari, in a car that is yet to show it has the outright pace to do so. He then looked on for a podium for the first third of the race. Whilst he faded slightly, with his race pace being hindered by a cooling issue he showed a fighting spirit and extracted the maximum potential from the car he was given. The battle between him and Lewis will be fascinating this season and I’m personally interested to see how many of Mercedes’ eggs start falling in George’s basket.

5. Zhou Guanyu-

Zhou may have not finished in the points, but he took a car that did not look very fast and utilized a strategic offset, undercutting the bottom half of the field and then managing his tyres throughout the stints, to finish ahead of a number of faster cars and kick Sauber’s season off with a solid, if unremarkable, result. If Zhou wants to make a case to remain in F1 in a year where his contract is up, this is the perfect start.

Shoutout- Zane Maloney-

An acknowledgement has to Zane Maloney for his performance in F2 this weekend. He decided to become the Verstappen of F2, winning both the sprint and feature races easily. The overtakes he made in the sprint race were stunning, especially on Fittipaldi, which may be my moment of the weekend. In a weekend where other drivers expected for challenge for the title faltered, Maloney shone. There’s a long season to go, but the boy from Barbados just firmly put himself in title contention.