Esteban Ocon (P8, 4 pts): 7.5/10
Esteban Ocon had to spend first practice watching from the sidelines, as his young stand-in Jack Doohan suffered engine problems limiting him to just 13 laps. On the plus side it meant Ocon was one of three full-time drivers permitted to spend time running regular tyres in FP2 while everyone else was dutifully testing Pirelli's 2023 prototypes. He was 11th in final practice, and survived the cut to make the final top ten pole shoot-out round in qualifying to start the race from tenth place. The major objective of the afternoon was to beat Lando Norris and help Alpine keep their lead over McLaren in the constructors championship, and things started well when both he and team mate Fernando Alonso got the jump on Norris on the first lap. Ocon settled in running in ninth behind Valtteri Bottas until he pitted on lap 33, the team responding to earlier stops from Norris and Yuki Tsunoda. Like the McLaren he moved from mediums to hard, and like Norris he found them hard to switch on, but at least Norris was still behind him. But then it all went rather wrong for Alpine, when Alonso's engine expired and Daniel Ricciardo suddenly roaring past Ocon on lap 61 having taken fresh soft tyres that Ocon could do nothing about. The team hadn't seen that one coming, and as a result they lost four points of their advantage over McLaren in the team standings with two races to go to decide who will finish in fourth.
Daniel Ricciardo (P7, 6 pts): 8.5/10
Seven days ago, you could hardly imagine a more dejected figure than Daniel Ricciardo in the paddock at Austin after a deeply disappointing United States GP. It really seemed that he would be leaving F1 at the end of the year with barely a whimper. But a week is a long time in Formula 1, and what we got in Mexico was a reminder of just how brilliant the Australian can be when he gets the chance to shine. His practice results were decent without being eye-popping - 11th in FP1, 14th in FP3 - and he very nearly made a rare appearance in the final round of qualifying only to be cruelly denied by half a tenth, putting him 11th on the grid just behind the two Alpine cars. Unfortunately he lost two places at the start to Zhou Guanyu and Yuki Tsunoda, although he was soon able to regain one of the lost positions with a pass on the Chinese rookie on lap 9. Having started on medium tyres, Ricciardo still managed to stay out until lap 44 which allowed McLaren to see what was going on elsewhere, and in particular how well the soft compound was lasting - which is what they put Ricciardo on to for his final stint. It was like a time machine, the years rolling back to the days when Ricciardo was capable of expertly carving through the field. He was too impatient passing Tsunoda and got a ten second penalty for their clash, but such was his speed at this point compared to those around him he was able to climb up to seventh with enough in hand over Ocon in P8 for the penalty to be essentially redundant. It might be too late to prevent him exiting McLaren at the end of the year, but at least he's going out with a satisfying 'bang'!
