Alpine’s Esteban Ocon has revealed that he is hoping for “wheel to wheel action” in Baku at the 2022 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Ocon comes into this round off the back of a tough weekend in Monaco where he struggled in Friday Practice, before rebounding in Qualifying to qualify 10th on the grid but was only able to manage 12th in a wet-to-dry race due to a penalty for a collision with Lewis Hamilton.
The Frenchman however is optimistic of a fightback in Baku as he felt that Monaco isn’t a true view of where Alpine are performance wise as he explained: “The result doesn’t reflect where we were as a team last weekend.
“However disappointing, we left Monaco with our heads held high knowing that we had a good car which was able to compete well inside the top 10. We are taking forward our learnings, some of which will be related to Baku, another street circuit.”
Ocon however doesn’t have the best of luck in Baku with two retirements in three visits but he is eager to get involved in “wheel to wheel action down the straights” this weekend whilst trying to “… find a balance between the straight-line speed for the straights and not taking too much downforce off the car to allow good lap-time through some of the slower corners.”
Looking ahead at his targets for the whole weekend, Ocon revealed that he is looking for a “smooth” weekend across all three practice sessions heading into Qualifying, in order to try and qualify as high up the grid as he can to put himself in a position to score points in the race.
Ocon’s teammate, Fernando Alonso meanwhile enjoyed a stronger Monaco weekend as the Spaniard fought off Hamilton to finish seventh, following a tactical decision in terms of positioning to preserve his medium tyres and frustrate the Brit mid-race upon resumption after a red flag.
Alonso consequently heads into this race in a positive move as he explained his tactics in Monaco, as he said: “I had to manage the tyres at the end as we fitted the Mediums for the restart, but once I could push, we managed to create a good enough gap to Lewis behind.”
The two-time F1 champion though is anticipating a very different race in Baku compared to Monaco as he added: “Baku is a track where overtaking is very possible. In my last three races there I’ve managed to gain a number of places during the race, so it’s very different to Monaco in that respect.”
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