Lewis Hamilton (P4, Fastest lap, 13 pts): 8/10
Mercedes finally got to roll out their revised specification for the W14 this weekend, but Monaco is hardly the best place to try out new parts. We'll have to wait until Barcelona to get a real sense of whether the Brackley boys have made significant progress by dropping the zero sidepod approach. Toto Wolff grudgingly said that the car had made a step up from "awful" to "not good" but Lewis Hamilton looked rather happier with the state of play, opening the weekend third quickest in FP1. However the end of final practice saw him inflict some serious damage on his car and it was with some relief that he was actually able to take part in qualifying without any delay. While fifth on the grid was a decent outcome, it's worrying that Alpine is now in the mix at the front as well as Aston Martin, and only a grid penalty for Charles Leclerc and a crash for Sergio Perez had made room at the sharp end of the grid. Hamilton maintained position over the first 30 laps and then made an early stop to trade mediums for hard tyres, forcing an immediate reaction from Esteban Ocon and Carlos Sainz ahead. The rain then caught everyone out, but a rapid stop for inters on lap 54 gave Hamilton the edge and put him back into fourth. While he tried to pressure Ocon for the podium, it just wasn't possible in the conditions and on the tight Monaco circuit. At least he hadn't been told to let Russell go by to give it a try, or Hamilton would definitely not have been a happy boiler suit bunny.
Esteban Ocon (P3, 15 pts): 9.5/10
It's been a very long time since Esteban Ocon scored his one and only Formula 1 race victory, in Hungary in 2021, so his celebrations on the podium in Monaco on Sunday were entirely understandable and thoroughly deserved. He'd had a solid time in practice, finishing in the lower regions of the top ten in all three sessions, but exceeded expectations in the final round of qualifying were he managed to push his way up to fourth place. That became third on the grid when Charles Leclerc was handed a grid penalty for blocking lando Norris. It meant Ocon has a great view as the top two - Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso - roared off into the distance as soon as the lights went out, never to be seen again. The Alpine just didn't have the sort of pace and performance to match Red Bull and Aston Martin, so Ocon had to focus on repelling unwanted advances from Carlos Sainz. The stand-off ended up with damage to the Ferrari's front wing endplate from one probing attack too many. Ocon and Sainz subsequently pitted within one lap of each other in order to guard against an early stop from Lewis Hamilton, which dropped Ocon behind George Russell; when Russell did stop for inters after the rain started to fall, it was only thanks to the Mercedes sliding off at Massenet and hitting Sergio Perez in an unsafe return that Ocon's podium was finally secured, once he managed to deter Hamilton from making any costly late lunges. It's fair to say that the result flattered the Alpine - and that it was Ocon who personally deserves the lion's share of the credit for it.
