Fernando Alonso (P10, 1 pt): 6.5/10
In just his second race back in Formula 1 after two years away, Fernando Alonso succeeded in securing a championship point. But it's unlikely to be the cause of major celebrations in the Alpine camp, coming as it does courtesy of a post-race penalty for his fellow veteran former world champion Kimi Raikkonen. So let's see this instead as a small but important step forward for Alonso, who put in a solid weekend's work that saw him in the top ten and ahead of team mate Esteban Ocon in FP1 and again on Saturday morning, although he rather lost momentum and only just managed to squeeze into the second round of qualifying to put himself into 15th place on the grid for the race while Ocon went all the way through to Q3 and started from ninth. The tricky conditions on Sunday sent Alonso sliding off the track on the way to the grid even before the race, but the team was able to repair the light front wing damage in time. Both men then rather made a mess of the start and found themselves running together for much of the afternoon. The red flag stoppage helped Alonso get in front of Ocon, but the Frenchman caught and passed him again on lap 40 after which Alonso could only sit and stare at his team mate's rear wing all the way to the finish.
Esteban Ocon (P9, 2 pts): 7.5/10
Fernando Alonso has a reputation of being a 'team mate breaker', but Esteban Ocon went toe-to-toe with the two time world champion in Imola and more than held his own. The weekend hadn't started well after his FP1 was curtailed by a collision with his former Force India team mate Sergio Perez, but Ocon soon recovered and when it came to qualifying it was Ocon who made it all the way through to the final top ten pole shoot-out round while the senior man only just squeaked into Q2. That gave Ocon a six place advantage on the grid for the start of the race, but that evaporated in an instant when the lights went out when his choice of full wets backfired and plunged him down to 14th place. At least he was able to ditch the erroneous compound under the safety car for Nicholas Latifi's accident, and after that he was soon able to move back in front of Alonso with the pair running in formation. That lasted until Ocon's first proper pit stop of the day on lap 20 shuffled the order of the Alpinistas. The red flag stoppage enabled Alonso to move ahead, but that didn't last long and once the race resumed Ocon was in charge again - and stayed there all the way to the finish. Ocon crossed the line knowing he'd scored a point, and his tally was doubled by news of Kimi Raikkonen's penalty which also promoted Alonso into the points making it a welcome double success for the team.
