After finishing sixth at the Austrian Grand Prix, Esteban Ocon hailed Alpine’s ‘amazing weekend.’
After finishing sixth at the Austrian Grand Prix, Esteban Ocon hailed Alpine’s ‘amazing weekend.’ At the Austrian Grand Prix, Esteban Ocon finished in fifth place, which was his best finish of the season. And the happy Alpine driver thinks that he and his team had an “amazing weekend” after tying with McLaren in the points for the constructors’ championship. Ocon started the race in sixth place, and he got off to a good start on Sunday. In the first stint, he was as high as third. However, after coming into the pit lane on Lap 15, the Alpine driver had to work his way through the rest of the field, passing Zhou Guanyu and Yuki Tsunoda in an awe-inspiring way.
Ocon was in fourth place before Lewis Hamilton passed him on Lap 30, and then George Russell passed him on Lap 60. But after Carlos Sainz quit, the Alpine driver was able to finish the weekend in fifth place, which he called “amazing.”
Ocon’s Take on the Weekend
“Quiet?!” When asked if his race had been easy, Ocon chortled. “Not really. Fight with George, fight with Kevin [Magnussen], fight with Lewis [Hamilton] a bit. We had quite a few fights. We did a lot overtakes in between on Zhou, on quite a few drivers coming back through the field. It was awesome. It’s a perfect weekend I think for us. There is nothing better that we could have done. Top five, it’s thirteen points in total we score this weekend. We gained a place I think in the constructors’, being fourth at the moment, so it’s a really good one. We are going to France with good confidence!”
Fernando’s Sprint
Fernando Alonso, who is on the same team as Ocon, had a slightly harder weekend. First, an electrical problem forced him to quit the Sprint during the formation lap. Then, a new engine was put in the Spaniard’s car, and he had to start from P19. When asked if a teammate’s problems made him nervous, Ocon said that he had complete faith in his team.
“It’s never great, to have such problems, but… I did trust the team and they fixed the problem – we ran the race with no issues at all – and we were almost going to finish in front of George. It was quite close, and I believed that at one point, but I think we still have a bit of work to do in that regard.”
Alpine and McLaren are now tied for fourth place in the constructors’ championship, with the same number of points. When asked if his team now has the fourth fastest car on the grid, Ocon said, “I think we had this weekend [a faster car than McLaren] clearly. There were hopes that we could have fought with George at the time, but after the restart he was too fast so I had to let him go. But it looked like this weekend we were [the fourth fastest team]. Hopefully it will be at all the rest of the circuits.”
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