The grimace soup for Esteban Ocon in Austin
The United States Grand Prix only lasted six laps for Esteban Ocon: the N°31, still having an interesting pace, had to quit after a clash at the start.
That’s the funny paradox at Alpine: the A523s perform fairly well, achieving decent performances, either with both drivers or with one of the two alternately… but the results are far from what the team could aspire to.
For Esteban Ocon, this United States Grand Prix started off promisingly, but quickly spoiled: the N°31 qualified in a respectable 8th place for the Grand Prix. This was better than his anonymous 11th place in the Sprint the day before.
The start quickly spoiled the chances of performing well for the Normand: Oscar Piastri, somewhat optimistic, made contact with Ocon’s Alpine, right in the technical section of the first sector. The damage was too significant on the blue car and the 6th lap tolled the death knell of his race. Frustrating!
Not bad but not good enough
What is frustrating for Esteban Ocon is that he was on track to run an interesting race: in the first few laps, he had a nice duel with George Russell and Sergio Perez at the end of the long straight back.
His Alpine, with DRS closed, had nonetheless shown good speed in the slipstream of the Mercedes, which had the DRS open. The Alpine doesn’t necessarily lack pace, but is not at the level of its ambitions.
All the more reason that Pierre Gasly, his teammate, performed well, author of a wise and intelligent race (8th at the finish, 6th on the green carpet after the disqualifications of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc).
For Esteban Ocon, it will be another Sunday to forget, despite promising signs. « It’s unfortunate. It’s another tough Sunday for us. There have been a few tough Sundays in the past that unfortunately cost us. We got off to a good start and good momentum (…). Now what’s happening is a race incident (…). We could have scored points today, but we have a few days to wait before moving on to the next race (…) » he said.
