Esteban Ocon (P10, 1 pt): 8.5/10
Confirmation that Alpine is starting to get on top of things after a terrible start to the season came in the form of their first championship point of the season, courtesy of tenth place for Esteban Ocon. The Sprint race the day before had proved a disappointment - starting from ninth but then retreating from the points positions to end up in 13th is never a good look. Things didn't look much better at the start of the Grand Prix when he lost out to Alex Albon on the first lap. He dug in, moved up the order as pit stops started cycling through, but made his own on lap 22 which was too early to really benefit from the safety car. He took the restart in tenth, gained from Oscar Piastri's clash with Carlos Sainz but lost out to Fernando Alonso who passed him on lap 48. By now all that mattered was holding on long enough to break the team's duck in the constructors championship, and that's precisely what he delivered to the delight and relief of the Alpine team in pit lane.
Fernando Alonso (P9, 2 pts): 7.5/10
Fernando Alonso was emphatically second best to his Aston Martin team mate Lance Stroll when it came to qualifying this weekend, and as a whole it was his weakest outing for some time - even though it was Alonso who collected the points when they were on the table. That wasn't possible in the Sprint when he was the innocent filling in the club sandwich comprised of four cars involved in a first lap incident that sent Stroll and Lando Norris into retirement and Alonso heading to pit lane to deal with a puncture. In Sunday's race it was the timing of the safety car for Logan Sargeant's accident that helped turned things around for Alonso. He took the restart behind Esteban Ocon and applied pressure on the Alpine that paid off on lap 48 to put him into ninth at the chequered flag.
