Mick Schumacher (P12): 7/10
Given how far out of their depth Haas were looking this week, Mick Schumacher put on a brave face and pulled out a decent performance as he continues to battle for his F1 survival beyond the end of the season. Being stood down by Haas for FP1 and replaced by Antonio Giovinazzi would not have been encouraging in the circumstances. An ECU issue then limited him to just nine laps in FP2, and more problems on Saturday morning meant he completed just seven in FP3. When the world is against you in motorsport, it really does give you a proper kicking in the Halo. No surprise then that he ended qualifying dead last. He also had a 15 place grid penalty for taking new engine components (it never rains, but it pours) but the outcome was a gain of three places on the grid putting him into P17 for the start. He ended up running the first stint of the race ahead of Valtteri Bottas, and a long 32-lap run on mediums raised him into eighth place by the time he finally pitted for a set of softs. Nice try, but the strategy meant he then dropped to the back where he was reunited with his team mate Kevin Magnussen. At least the new tyres allowed him to carry the fight to Lance Stroll, Nicholas Latifi and Yuki Tsunoda in the closing laps, although Esteban Ocon was a challenge too far.
Esteban Ocon (P11): 7/10
You'd have put good money going into the race that one or both Alpines would be coming away from Monza with points in the bag in their ongoing battle with McLaren for fourth place in the constructors championship. But you'd have come out empty-handed if you had - just like the team did. That's despite Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso comfortably cruising around in the top ten in all three practice sessions. Unfortunately Ocon missed the cut at the end of the first round of qualifying, while Alonso made it into Q3 but failed to record a lap time once he was there. It was superfluous in any case as Ocon had a five place grid penalty to serve for new power unit components having been fitted to the A522 this weekend, meaning he lined up in 14th place on the grid. he quickly got stuck behind the Aston Martins of Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll preventing him from making much forward progress, and after his pit stop he then found his way forward blocked by Zhou Guanyu doing a very creditable job in the Alfa Romeo. He failed to find a way past for the next 33 laps and as a result just missed out on a top ten finish under the safety car.
