What an eventful race it was! The Canadian Grand Prix has just concluded and we had Max Verstappen at the win again; however, he only won by a hair. Alpine was one team that made it into the Top 10, scoring 3 points for the team. Pierre Gasly came in at P9, followed by Esteban Ocon at P10, and the two drivers were battling to be ahead.
Both the Alpine drivers started out of the points and made it to the Top 10 in a race where 5 cars were eliminated. Despite starting at P18, Ocon managed to beat the competition to reach P10. It was a similar case for Gasly as he had a P15 start. Although Ocon was in the lead, the orders were for him to let Gasly pass ahead of him, and as Fernando Alonso has done in the past, the 27-year-old racer expressed his unhappiness with the team’s decision on the radio.
Esteban Ocon, unhappy about the team’s strategy
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Previously, Ocon and Gasly had contact that led the No. 31 car to retire. It was ultimately ruled as Esteban Ocon‘s fault, giving him a 5-place grid penalty. Despite all the challenges, Ocon made it into the points, but that did not come without fighting for P9.
Ocon team radio post-race:
“No comment. I am too nice, too nice.
“I’ve done what I had to do, which is the most important.
“But you guys didn’t do what you had to do. That’s it.”
— formularacers (@formularacers_) June 9, 2024
During the race, Ocon was told to let Pierre Gasly through, which he was not happy about. After Ocon had to give his position away to Gasly, the 27-year-old shared his feelings on the team radio after the race.
Ocon said about the team’s decision to let Gasly pass, “No comment. I am too nice, too nice. I’ve done what I had to do, which is the most important. But you guys didn’t do what you had to do. That’s it.” His frustration was visible, as he would have liked to score more points considering he was out of the Monaco Grand Prix.
Ultimately, Ocon can’t be happy after knowing the team has decided not to continue with him. Now it’s up to him to prove himself worthy of being on the grid after the 2025 season. Alpine is known to make decisions that make the drivers happy, and one of the biggest examples of that is Fernando Alonso. So let’s take a look at what the two-time world champion had to say about his former team.
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Fernando Alonso criticizes Alpine
Back in 2022, when Fernando Alonso was with Alpine, he had a bad experience due to a wrongly planned pitstop from the team. It was the Japanese Grand Prix and Alonso had started at P7. Although he won positions during the race, he ended up finishing at P7 due to a late pitstop.
via Reuters
Unhappy about the strategy team’s planning, he told Motorsport, “The strategy didn’t work for us. We made the wrong choices continuously. First, we stopped the last to put the intermediates, we lost places. Then we stopped too late for the second stop with six laps to the end, and I just finished in the same place that I was. I was asking to pit earlier on both occasions, but today my microphone maybe didn’t work.”
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Fernando Alonso is an experienced driver with many years of experience in F1. That being said, he has seen many aspects of the sport that we couldn’t understand. He found the gaps in Alpine’s strategy and when was as vocal as Ocon had been this time. That being said, what do you think of Alpine’s decision to let Gasly get by? Was it fair in your opinion? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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