Pierre Gasly (Damage, Lap 27): 7/10
Pierre Gasly didn't set a time in the wet first practice, was off the pace in the second session, and did only slightly better in final practice on Saturday. Despite that disappointing build-up he came within a whisker of making it through to the final round of qualifying and secured himself 11th place on the grid for the start of the race. Unfortunately when the lights went out that put him in the middle of a three-wide pincer going into turn one, with Zhou Guanyu on the outside and George Russell on the inside. When the gap closed, Gasly touched the rear left of the Mercedes and sent it spinning into the Alfa Romeo, trigging a huge accident and a red flag. The damage to his own AlphaTauri was repairable and after the restart he was soon up to seventh, but he was then taken out by his team mate Yuki Tsunoda who lost the back end of his own car while going down the inside of Gasly into turn 3 on lap 11. Gasly limped on for a time, but the damage to the AT03 was too great and he retired on lap 27.
Esteban Ocon (Fuel pump, Lap 38): 7/10
This could have been a very productive day for Esteban Ocon, with the Alpine set for points having just claimed the scalp of a wounded Max Verstappen mid-race. Unfortunately Alpine's reliability issues struck again and he triggered a safety car when he was forced to pull up and park at Chapel. Up to then it had been a solid but not spectacular weekend for the Frenchman: neither he nor Fernando Alonso set a time in the wet FP1 and he was significantly slower than his team mate in the second session, but they were much closer on Saturday until a battery-related loss of power at the beginning of Q2 ruled him out of continuing in qualifying. That gave him a mountain to climb in the race but at least he was still in it after mechanics fixed suspension damage sustained in the first start carnage. He did well to recover to eighth with a lovely sweeping pass on Verstappen, but then the fuel pump packed up and that was it for the day.
