Kimi Raikkonen (P14): 6.5/10
After starting last weekend's race from dead last on the grid, Kimi Raikkonen was determined not to be embarrassed in the same way again in Spain. By the time it got to qualifying, he has asserted his supremacy over Alfa Romeo team mate Antonio Giovinazzi, and he dug deep to successfully avoid elimination at the end of the first round of qualifying. He ended up beating Esteban Ocon in qualifying to put himself into 14th on the grid for the race, only to lose out to Kevin Magnussen when the lights went out. However no great harm had been done and he maintained position through to the first round of pit stops. The final stint saw him move onto the soft compound after two sets of mediums, and Raikkonen finally felt that that C39 had some real life to it as he engaged in some feisty battles and pulled himself back up the order to cross the line where he'd started the day. "The end result is a bit disappointing as I felt we could have had a bit more," he concluded.
Esteban Ocon (P13): 6.5/10
Esteban Ocon crept into the top ten at the end of Friday practice and must have felt he had a chance at cracking the final round of qualifying, but it was not to be. Things took a turn for the worse at the end of Saturday morning's final practice session where he was caught out by a slowing Haas and ended up hitting the wall while taking evasive action, leaving the Renault mechanics with a long list of repairs to complete in time for qualifying. Perhaps inevitably the car wasn't at its best, and while he succeeded in avoiding first round elimination he nonetheless ended up slowest of the Q2 runners and consigned to 15th on the grid for the race. He lost a place at the start but then steadied the ship and rose as high as eighth place running on medium tyres. However the team's attempt to complete the second half of the race on the soft compound was simply too big a task although he did get the better of Kevin Magnussen, Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Raikkonen on his run to the finish.
