Esteban Ocon ended the season with 23 factors, nearly all of which got here from one gorgeous end result within the Brazilian Grand Prix, the place he completed second. 4 Tenth-place finishes on monitor (one in every of which subsequently turned ninth) had been his solely different factors scores.
He collected little greater than half as many factors as his workforce mate. However as Ocon’s relationship with Alpine fractured, his outcomes appeared to undergo, and he ended up leaving the workforce a race early.
His performances had been usually higher than the outcomes mirrored, particularly early within the season when the obese authentic A524 was at its least efficient. Ocon dragged it to eleventh in China, then went one higher in Miami to select up the workforce’s first level of the yr. This was thanks partly to getting his arms on Alpine’s new flooring earlier than workforce mate Pierre Gasly, who tended to lag behind him within the opening races.
The pair have had a fractious relationship at occasions and it exploded once more in Monaco when Ocon, exhibiting he nonetheless hasn’t realized to depart margin when racing his workforce mate, lunged at Gasly on the opening lap at Portier, inflicting contact. Whereas Gasly continued, Ocon’s race was ruined. Quickly afterwards Alpine introduced, to little shock, that Ocon wouldn’t return in 2025.
Esteban Ocon
Greatest
Worst
GP begin
4
20 (x3)
GP end
2
18 (x2)
Factors
23
It was putting that, from then on, Ocon appeared to get the tough finish of Alpine’s technique calls. He reluctantly and belatedly complied with their order to let Gasly by in Canada, although it was a borderline name at finest. In Austria Ocon ran forward of his workforce mate earlier than being ‘undercut’ by him.
There have been different events when, even taking the A524’s shortcomings into consideration, Ocon wasn’t as much as scratch. He was poor in Zandvoort, and dropped out in Q1 in Mexico whereas Gasly reached the ultimate spherical and topped up his factors tally.
A wonderful drive to an eventual ninth-place end at Spa seemed prone to be the spotlight of his season till Brazil. There Ocon demonstrated each his talent and his ruthlessness: he claimed fourth on the grid after compromising each Gasly and Max Verstappen throughout qualifying, briefly led and delivered Alpine’s finest results of the season with second place.
However simply two races later, having misplaced time with a botched pit cease in Las Vegas and been taken out at the beginning in Qatar, Alpine selected to indicate Ocon the door a race early. It clearly wasn’t a mirrored image on the standard of the job he had accomplished for them.
RaceFans’ driver rankings are primarily based partly on the scores awarded to drivers for his or her performances in every spherical in addition to different elements.
Advert | Grow to be a RaceFans supporter and
Components 1
Browse all Components 1 articles
