Brazilian Grand Prix – Ocon played an important role for Alpine in Brazil
Esteban Ocon delivered a very good performance during this Brazilian Grand Prix by securing solid points for his team in the championship.
After a disappointing Friday, once again beaten by Fernando Alonso in qualifying, Esteban Ocon woke up on Saturday during the sprint qualifying as the best positioned Alpine in 9th place.
Overtaken by Lewis Hamilton at the start, the native of Évreux had a good battle later in the first lap with his compatriot Pierre Gasly and Daniel Ricciardo’s McLaren. A very close three-way battle where the tires were not far from a collision in the twisty sector 2.
Stopping on the 31st lap, Esteban Ocon then overtook Yuki Tsunoda and took advantage of Ricciardo’s retirement to move up to 8th place. However, he lost one position to Fernando Alonso during the pit stops.
With Gasly making a second stop for hard tires, Ocon eventually found himself ahead of the AlphaTauri and held on for a long time before finally cracking on the 60th lap.
Passing his garage neighbor on the last lap of the race, Esteban Ocon finally finishes in a good 8th position.
« We did everything we could to keep Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri behind. We tried several strategies, including having Fernando Alonso slow down enough so that Pierre wouldn’t pass me. In the end, it failed, but as a team we did a very good job and we can be happy to have limited the damage today.
The performance of French and Alonso allow Alpine to remain tied on points with AlphaTauri in their battle for 5th place in the constructors’ championship.
