Charles Leclerc (P6, 8 pts): 8/10
After the disappointment of Hungary just before the summer break, Charles Leclerc really needed something to reenergise his championship campaign and do something about that yawning chasm in the points standings between himself and Max Verstappen. Unfortunately, that wasn't to be this week in Spa, with Red Bull so much faster than Ferrari that they really did seem to be competing in in a completely different motor racing category. That wasn't evident initially on Friday when the two Ferraris were fastest, but Verstappen was a stunning 0.862s quicker than Leclerc in FP2, and Leclerc dropped over a second behind Sergio Perez in final practice. Qualifying was pretty much irrelevant to the title rivals with Verstappen and Leclerc both handed penalties for power unit changes; but the fact that Verstappen was still more than six tenths quicker than anyone else in Q3 told the tale of what was to come on Sunday. When the lights went out, Leclerc did his best to carve through the field but had to stop early under the safety car after getting a tear-off stuck in his air duct intake which put him slightly off-sequence. Once all the stops shook out he found himself in fifth place, but the team then thought they had the track space to bring him in to change onto a set of soft tyres in pursuit of the point for fastest lap. They failed to pull it off, and Leclerc incurred a pit lane speeding penalty in the process that dropped him behind Alonso in the final classification. Another of Ferrari's "nice idea, shame about the execution" moments that we've seen all too often in 2022.
Fernando Alonso (P5, 10 pts): 8.5/10
Any thoughts of a rift between Alpine and Fernando Alonso in their remaining races before the two-time world champion heads to Aston Martin in 2023 have been quickly dispelled by another strong result this weekend, and by some conspicuously effective team work between Alonso and Esteban Ocon. It had been a slow start to the weekend - Alonso's seventh place at the end of FP2 was the best performance by either driver on Friday - but Alonso was a strong fifth in final practice and went into qualifying confident of making it through to the final top ten pole shoot-out round. Which he duly did, and comfortably at that, nimbly trading tows with Ocon to finish sixth in the timesheets which converted to third place on the grid for the race itself after grid penalties were factored in for Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc. Alonso got the better of a slow-starting Sergio Perez at the start but then collided with Lewis Hamilton entering Les Combes, flipping the Mercedes into the air. While the W13 had sustained critical damage and retired, Alonso was miraculously able to continue in one piece. After each of the two pit stops he soon found his natural level of sixth place behind Leclerc and ahead of Ocon, and seemed content to settle for that until Ferrari dangled a tempting opportunity by pitting Leclerc on the penultimate lap (for soft tyres, to take the bonus point for fastest lap) which allowed Alonso to seize fifth only to lose it again moments later. But the stewards had the last word with a five second pit lane speeding penalty for Leclerc, which meant Alonso was handed P5 after all. And deservedly so for a particularly strong race from F1's eldest statesman.
