Ocon's Near Miss: Alpine F1's Unrewarded Weekend

Esteban Ocon misses points by a hair at the Chinese GP, narrowly trailing behind Hülkenberg.

Esteban Ocon finished just outside the points in China, just over two seconds behind Nico Hülkenberg. The Alpine F1 driver hopes to open his account if a penalty is imposed on the German, who overtook under the safety car and thus violated Article 55.8 of the Sporting Regulations.

“It’s not quite the reward we were hoping to have, unfortunately. I think we maximized everything since yesterday and it’s tough to miss out on the top 10 by 2 seconds, because it would have been nice to have that finish and the point we worked so hard to earn but didn’t manage to get,” the Frenchman told Canal+.

“Hülkenberg is under investigation for gaining time under the Safety Car by overtaking two cars that were colliding, while I let them pass. We missed the points by two seconds and it’s our best result of the year so we need to keep progressing in this direction.”

Ocon is still questioning the contribution of the upgrades this weekend but is pleased to see his team progressing: “It’s not certain that there were major improvements with what we did this weekend. Both cars were better and took a step forward.”

“Weight played a role, for sure, but I’m not sure the aerodynamic downforce did what we thought. But we left nothing on the table this weekend on either side and it’s a successful weekend, even though we were not rewarded.”

A worrying incident but fortunately without serious consequences

Pierre Gasly finished further back in a race marked by an incident in the pits. While his mechanics struggled to change his rear wheel, he was given the green light to go and collided with one of his mechanics, fortunately without injury to the person knocked over.

“We need to analyze what happened, the light turned green for me to go and the tire was not attached,” the French driver recounts. “I saw the mechanic who is fine but it was impressive and it cost us a lot of time.”

“We came back with the Safety Car and tried an extra stop. But we knew we had to limit the damage without the upgrades on my side, and it was the most constructed weekend of the season but I look forward to having the upgrades Esteban had, in Miami.”

“It’s a few kilos less and more aerodynamic points in every corner. It’s moving in the right direction but we need to keep working. There’s still work to do but it will bring us closer to the points zone and that’s what’s needed.”