Alpine’s Esteban Ocon has revealed that he is happy with ‘hard, fair, wheel to wheel racing’ against teammate, Fernando Alonso in 2022 Saudi Arabia Grand Prix.
Ocon enjoyed a strong start from fifth on the grid but lost the position to George Russell on Lap Three, which led to a fiercely competitive tussle for sixth against Alonso for ten laps despite the Spaniard getting past on Lap Eight.
During their scrap, Alpine’s pit wall decided to let them race until they instructed Ocon on Lap 13 to “hold position” in seventh, only for the Frenchman to be passed by Valtteri Bottas a lap later.
Reflecting on his close lengthy fight against Alonso for the first time under Otmar Szafnauer’s management at Alpine, Ocon said: “The fight with Fernando was enjoyable. It was hard, fair, wheel to wheel racing, which reminded me of the karting days.”
This however isn’t the first time that Ocon had enjoyed close personal battles against teammates under Szafnauer’s watch, having previously clashed with Sergio Perez on several occasions during their time together at Force India in 2017 & 18 seasons.
Ocon eventually claimed “some good points” with a sixth placed finish after beating Lando Norris to the checkered flag by just 0.107 seconds, having previously missed out on third at last year’s Saudi Arabian GP in similar fashion to Bottas which left him feeling “disappointed” in that event.
Discussing that final lap post race, Ocon commented: “It was an exciting end to the race as well just beating Lando [Norris] to the line. It felt a bit like redemption for last year!”
Alonso meanwhile retired on Lap 35 with suspected cooling issues which is currently being investigated by Alpine, yet the Spaniard is positive about the car’s otherwise strong performance across the whole weekend.
Commenting on where he thought he would of finished if he had reached the checkered flag, Alonso said: “I think we deserved sixth place today and we were having a good race, so it’s bad luck we couldn’t get to the end.”
Alonso also spoke of how he felt that his battle with Ocon was “fair” and full of “respect” on track but believed that he “was a little bit faster during the race”, which enabled him to make the overtake whilst also watching out for Bottas who lingered behind the scrapping Alpine drivers.
Szafnauer though had “mixed feelings” about the results because whilst Ocon’s “strong result,” underlined their competitive potential, Alonso’s retirement meant that the team missed out on a double points finish in Jeddah.
On Ocon’s battle against Alonso, Szafnauer felt “happy to let them race hard and fair as, in the end, having both drivers extracting the absolute maximum from the car is what we’re here to do.”
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