Esteban Ocon, Alpine (SP11, P12): 6/10
Esteban Ocon and his Alpine team mate looked evenly matched in the Sprint. They qualified close together and Ocon had a finger hold on a points-paying position, but it slipped out of his hands at the start. He then spent the rest of the race scrapping with Gasly, which left them too preoccupied to recover into the top ten. When it came to qualifying for the Grand Prix, Ocon made it into the final round while Gasly fell short, but before long they found themselves back in proximity on the track and once again busy fighting with one another. The faster Gasly wasn't happy with the way Ocon held him up and eventually forced his way through to finish in the top ten and get a point for the team, while Ocon succumbed to a late challenge from Charles Leclerc in the wounded Ferrari with two laps to go. It was a weekend that showcased some of Ocon's real skills, but also exposed some of his biggest flaws as he continues to lose friends and alienate people at Alpine ahead of his exit at the end of the year.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari (SP7, P11, 2 pts): 7/10
Although the weekend started brightly enough for Charles Leclerc in first practice on Friday, he was then hit by a serious of setbacks. In Sprint Qualifying, a problem with his anti-stall system in SQ3 meant he didn't get to the line in time to start his lap leaving him without a time and in tenth place on the grid, from which P7 and two points was the best he could do in the short race. He was disappointed with sixth in qualifying for the Grand Prix, and he had reason to be as this left him in the thick of a group of cars all jockeying for position. Leclerc's front wing was damaged by contact with Oscar Piastri's McLaren meaning he had to limp back to pit lane for repairs. The team tried to find some inventive pit strategy that would work for him, and his race engineer kept him motivated by saying points were still possible, but they weren't. In the end, floor damage from the original contact was too much for him to overcome.
