Esteban Ocon (P8, 4 pts): 7/10
Coming off his Monaco podium, Esteban Ocon had a certain confidence if not actual swagger to him when he took to the track on Friday and went third quickest in first practice. That sense of assuredness continued into the afternoon, and on Saturday afternoon there was no doubt that he would be going all the way through to the final round of qualifying. Unfortunately his final Q3 lap was a disappointment with overheating affecting the grip and leaving him battling to save the rear of the car, putting him down in seventh place and behind his team mate Pierre Gasly on the timing screens. Gasly's subsequent penalties for impeding promoted Ocon up to P6 on the grid on Sunday, and he benefitted from Lando Norris' early mishap to slot in to fifth between Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso - at least until George Russell hustled his way past. Sergio Perez also passed him during the first round of pit stops, and Alonso was able to pass him in a near-miss on lap 50 shortly after the second round of stops. After that it was a matter of keeping a careful eye on the feisty scrap between Yuki Tsunoda and Zhou Guanyu taking place in his rear view mirror. With Gasly also making it into the top ten it was another double points finish for Alpine, but a total of five points from the two drivers was still not everything that the squad had been hoping for when their season had kicked off with such high hopes and expectations.
Fernando Alonso (P7, 6 pts): 7.5/10
It's been such a brilliant spell for Fernando Alonso this season since he joined Aston Martin, with an unbroken run of six top-four finishes in the first six outings of 2023. But it had to end at some point, and it's just a shame that it did do in front of his adoring home fans at Barcelona who were willing him on to much greater things. It had looked promising on Friday where he finished the day second to Max Verstappen and just 0.170s off the pace of the Red Bull. He then had fun in the rain-hit final practice, but it was qualifying where things went awry when he slid off the damp circuit early in Q1. It didn't look to have done too much damage to the AMR23 at the time, but increasingly lavish amounts of duct tape being plastered all over the floor area revealed there was more to it. In such circumstances Alonso did well to make it through to the final round, but he was left starting the race from eighth on the grid, and in a wounded car that could only have so much repair work done overnight under parc ferme conditions. He knew that a podium was unlikely, and with no incidents or retirements to help him out he ended up making up only one place during the race to finish in seventh place behind his team mate Lance Stroll. There's no question that Alonso was as disappointed with how it all turned out as the legions of fans wearing racing green in the grandstands were.
