Esteban Ocon (P12): 7/10
Esteban Ocon was not a well man this weekend. Ill enough to be given a sick note for media work on Thursday, it was probably just as well that it was already the plan to have him sit out first practice in favour of Jake Doohan. Unsurprisingly he was below par when he did finally get out on track for the red flag fest of FP2, but he was feeling and performing better on Saturday - although not quite so well as to see him through to the final round of qualifying. He was put on a one-stop strategy for the race and that stop came rather early on lap 15 which compromised his later race performance. It did allow him to undercut team mate Pierre Gasly who was on a two-stop strategy, but it seemingly never occurred to Alpine or to Ocon to allow Gasly to get back in front and use the fresher tyres to attack Daniel Ricciardo and Lance Stroll for the points.
Daniel Ricciardo (P11): 6.5/10
It's been quite the up and down year for Daniel Ricciardo, who started the season without a race seat, got called up to replace Nyck de Vries at AlphaTauri, then got injured in a practice accident that saw him sidelined until the US Grand Prix, scored well in Mexico but since then had been unable to make it into the top ten. He missed out again this week in Abu Dhabi: while he made the initial cut in qualifying he ended up starting the race from P15 while team mate Yuki Tsunoda was in the top ten. Ricciardo still had a key role to play in earning any points he could that could help move the team ahead of Williams in the constructors championship, but in the end he fell short: a tear-off stuck in his brake duct forced an early pit stop that compromised strategy, and then he was held up by Logan Sargeant doing his best to play his own part for Williams by taking Ricciardo out of contention. It succeeded to the extent of leaving Ricciardo one place outside the points.
