Following a two year ‘retirement’ from Formula 1 spent winning endurance races, the question of how Fernando Alonso would fare on his return to the sport was one of the most intriguing heading into the 2021 season.
Esteban Ocon was seemingly caught in an unwinnable situation. Defeat Alonso and his achievements would be dismissed for beating a veteran two years out of the sport, but be outperformed by him and his reputation would suffer all the more for it.Instead, Alonso and Ocon would transpire to be 2021’s most closely-matched pair. From the qualifying battle (11-11) to classified finishes (9-9), the two Alpine drivers matched each other’s efforts over the course of the season. Only in final points tally and laps spent ahead did Alonso slightly break the tie.
Ocon enjoyed the more fruitful start to the year, while Alonso found his feet behind the wheel of a F1 car once again. From the second round at Imola through to Monaco, Ocon racked up four consecutive points finishes ahead of Alonso as Alpine found themselves in an early battle with AlphaTauri and Aston Martin in the midfield.
But once Alonso was fully up to speed, he beat Ocon every Saturday from Baku to Silverstone. And on Sundays, he finished ahead of his younger team mate in every race that the pair were both classified to almost double Ocon’s points tally midway through the season.
Then, a mixture of wet weather, first-lap misjudgements by Valtteri Bottas and Lance Stroll and a tactical error on the Mercedes pit wall saw Ocon jump out into the lead at the restart of the Hungarian Grand Prix. Leading a race genuinely for the first time, Ocon absorbed pressure from Sebastian Vettel and did not put a foot wrong to secure a stunning debut victory – helped in no small part by his team mate doing a superb job to hold up Lewis Hamilton.
Two sixth places in the Netherlands and Russia allowed Alonso to reestablish the points advantage over Ocon, before he converted a second-row start in Qatar into a strong third place and his first appearance on the podium since 2014. That would ensure that Alonso would mark his F1 return by finishing ahead of his younger team mate in the drivers’ championship.
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Esteban Ocon vs Fernando Alonso: Key stats
Esteban Ocon vs Fernando Alonso: Who finished ahead at each round
| BAH | EMI | POR | SPA | MON | AZE | FRA | STY | AUS | GRE | HUN | BEL | NET | ITA | RUS | TUR | USA | MEX | BRA | QAT | SAU | ABU | ||
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Esteban Ocon vs Fernando Alonso: Qualifying gap
Times based on the last qualifying round at each race weekend in which both drivers set a time. Negative indicates Esteban Ocon was faster, positive means Fernando Alonso was faster
2021 F1 season review
- 2021 F1 driver rankings #1: Max Verstappen
- 2021 F1 driver rankings #2: Lewis Hamilton
- 2021 F1 driver rankings #3: Lando Norris
- 2021 F1 driver rankings #4: Charles Leclerc
- 2021 F1 driver rankings #5: Carlos Sainz Jnr
RandomMallard
23rd December 2021, 12:48
This was a really good team mate battle to watch. Very close, both drivers having their strong points and weak points. What was also great to watch was the team spirit between the two of them, most notable Alonso helping Ocon take the win in Hungary and Ocon repaying the favour against Perez to allow Alonso onto the podium in Qatar. Seems to be a really good team environment there.
rodewulf (@rodewulf)
23rd December 2021, 22:31
RandomMallard
Only in Ferrari we have seen similar things of such a productive duo, no one being subservient to the other, no clear second driver role. Not saying it won’t happen any time soon, but this is the nice result of the work paying off for two pairings of closely matched team-mates performing more to a high level than towards the lower part of the driving performance table (which is the case of Aston Martin and Alfa Romeo driver pairings).
BasCB (@bascb)
23rd December 2021, 13:11
It was good to see how closely matched these guys were. And also how well they seem to be working together. Hope to see more of that from them and the Alpine team next year.
rodewulf (@rodewulf)
23rd December 2021, 22:59
@bascb
Alonso and Ocon were closely matched in driving performance only on the surface. From a performance point of view – not considering only the final points table – the closest team-mate battles were Ferrari (Leclerc edging Sainz despite being outscored, less luck to show), Aston Martin (Vettel unconvincingly beating Stroll), and Alfa Romeo (Raikkonen ahead but counting with Giovinazzi’s mistakes to score more points, and being outqualified more often than not).
Only then comes Alpine, the other team in which no driver breezed against his team-mate in performance matters. But the trend clearly favours Alonso during 2/3 of the season, reducing the influence of luck on the standings. Factoring out some incredible luck that Ocon had in Hungary and Saudi Arabia, as well as the five first races in which Alonso was getting up to speed, then Alonso outscore Ocon 64-25.
It’s blatantly obvious which one was the leading driver at Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren, AlphaTauri, Williams and Haas. There’s a clear difference from them to the teams mentioned before. People still have some doubts on who was the best driver at the other four teams cited previously, even if some of those are somewhat a stretch. But it’s not like if the question is completely settled and it’s clear that a team-mate was absolutely thrashed by the other.
hje
25th December 2021, 0:26
I love how Saudi was lucky, and Qatar was just skill. I think you didn’t notice that Alonso was spinning as a backmarker in Saudi, while Ocon was maintaining his position in TOP3, with Bottas actually participating in the race. Alonso got his position in Qatar due to lucky yellow flag penalties, and then Bottas and Perez got caught by Pirelli (another Alonso’s skill factor, he helped Bottas tyre to blow), and finally – helped by VSC, which Ocon didn’t have.
And don’t forget that Alonso also benefited from brawl in Hungary, finishing P4. And in Baku he also got lucky, he was in P11 with mediocre pace right before Verstappen tyre blowup. And Ocon was out of the race on lap 1, with an engine problems. Fresh engine, to be precise, which then compromised latter part of the season.
Lol. And it’s Ocon who was lucky.
rodewulf (@rodewulf)
25th December 2021, 13:19
hje
You missed something, Alonso had a problem with the engine during that weekend, his car was very slow on the straights and unbalanced with oversteer, losing the rear end easily. Had it happened more times this season it wouldn’t be a good excuse, bit as it was a rare occurence it is a reasonable one. Saudi was a crazy race, have you forgotten in which position Ocon qualified for that race? His progression through the race to almost get the podium was more about being at the right time than skill, he drove well, not taking it away from him, but very lucky in another crazy race.
Here begins the lies and omissions. In Qatar Alonso qualified 5th, only gained two positions from drivers in fast cars because of yellow flags (and those were their mistake, not them having mechanical failures) and so he started 3rd, passed Gasly with a superb move through the outside, was passed by Verstappen and held on brillantly in a net 3rd for the rest of the race. Bottas had a tyre blown partially on his own fault, he crossed Pirelli recommendations and notably doesn’t have the skills to preserve tyres, when compared to Hamilton, for instance. Alonso was going long, avoided tyre blows, had a significant cushion on Perez after Red Bull played safe on strategy, was slightly helped by Ocon in defense and used the VSC to soften further risks, not to be able to remain ahead. Perez finished less than 3s behind Alonso because the Spaniard did a very slow a careful last lap, as the gap was way bigger some time before. He didn’t depend on the VSC to remain ahead, it only made his mission of a podium comeback less tense. That’s why this Fernando drive was fully on merit or almost 100% (unlike Ocon’s win in Hungary and 4th place in Saudi), and dominant British media conveniently occulted this fact to protect Hammy’s self-bragged title of “best drive of the year” cruising through the field with that rocketship in Brazil. No surprise ignorant people bought this narrative, but also those for which this stuff is convenient. They absorb the manipulated information in a sluggish way without making their own analysis.
Which difference did it make if his direct rivals benefitted more in both occasions? Ocon and Vettel in Hungary, Vettel and Gasly in Baku. Relative to them he was actually unlucky. Fernando was P10 in Azerbaijan before the restart when Alpine was struggling for pace, and had passed some cars already on strategy, without race neutralisation. He beat his team-mate in quali, so it was more down to the car, not him, unlike in some previous weekends in which, granted, he was struggling.
I had chosen to leave Hungary and Saudi as outliers because they gave more than a 10 points swing to an Alpine driver on luck. It was not the case in Baku, but if you want to put further excuses for Ocon, it works for Alonso too, who had engine problems in other races than Saudi, like Mexico and Austin, possibly losing a couple more of points. Not a foregone conclusion that Ocon would have the same success in overtaking the field at Baku, and he was starting behind Alonso, so probably wouldn’t score the same amount of points than him.
As explained before, Ocon’s points loss by luck at Balu was not big at all, in fact smaller than others Alonso had and despite that I included in my calculations as non-outliers. I’m not eliminating Alonso’s bad luck, just equalising it a little bit relative to Ocon. I dare you to point in which situations Ocon was running for big points and hit some trouble or had some misfortune, because it happened at least twice to Alonso this season. Even then he had more bad luck to a certain degree, but it’s part of the game, so let’s leave it partially for a performance analysis. The recommendation from analytical statistics is only to remove outliers. For the rest, it is what it is, partially chance, but also something he could (or maybe even should) learn from.
Luke S (@joeypropane)
23rd December 2021, 13:31
One of, if not the, biggest team mate surprises for me – not just in how well matched they were, but with how well they worked together.
I suspect we’ll see more of the ruthless Alonso if Alpine move up the pecking order in coming seasons, but I feel like Ocon will be right there to support him and pick up the pieces if anything goes wrong on the other side of the garage!
rodewulf (@rodewulf)
23rd December 2021, 22:25
@joeypropane
Yeah, I have the feeling that he will not be Vandoorned and will push Alonso to new heights as he’s doing already, in the context of El Plan.
Fantomius (@liko41)
25th December 2021, 10:31
@rodewulf
We have to see if Ocon would be allowed to.
Notoriously, Alonso always wants certain clauses in his contracts…
erikje
23rd December 2021, 14:24
Interesting to see alpine grow under the new team management.
No favors for Alonso (like in his mclaren battle with vandoorne)
Two drivers fighting for each other and the team. Ocon and Alonso both surprised me. Ocon delivering under pressure and Alonso playing the team game.
Great to watch.. Curious how alpine will start in winter testing.
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
23rd December 2021, 15:02
I expected you to talk about his n°1 status at Ferrari. There is no need to have the n°1 status and get the team by your side to beat the overhyping, underdelivering Vandoorne.
HAL
23rd December 2021, 17:12
Which makes it even more ridiculous that he clearly had a N1 status, then.
Vandoorne failed, but he did great things in F2, endurance (SMP etc) to call him that. There is enough example of drivers failing in toxic context and yet been brilliant (remember Gasly, Grosjean, Vettel, Mansell). Selective memory or personal frustration you need to ventilate ?
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
23rd December 2021, 20:25
HAL,
You have to remember that Vandoorne was not only outqualified by Alonso in 2018 in all the 21 races but he qualified last five times. Even in Sochi that year where Alonso had a grid penalty and gave him a tow in qualy yet he still failed. Vandoorne’s performance compared to Alonso regressed in 2018 compared to 2017 which is quite telling.
He didn’t show any improvement. In a nutshell, he did the worst job compared to his teammate on the grid and was not F1 material which has nothing to do with the toxic environment you are talking about and the drivers you’ve mentioned haven’t underperformed like Vandoorne did.
That’s attribution bias from side :)
rodewulf (@rodewulf)
23rd December 2021, 22:21
@tifoso1989
In fact, Vandoorne had better luck in 2017 just like Ocon did in 2021, both against the relentlessly superb Alonso. It strongly indicates that Ocon is fitting better in Formula 1, not being Vandoorned up to now. People only look to the final results and fail to consider all the events that led to them. That’s why they can’t analyse trends and end up doing the wrong prediction even when the correct choice was glaring obvious.
Fantomius (@liko41)
25th December 2021, 10:35
@tifoso1989
Oh, tifoso, you always find new ways for making a fool of yourself!
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
25th December 2021, 11:59
@liko41
I’m Ok with that as long as I’m living rent free inside your head :)
Fantomius (@liko41)
25th December 2021, 21:07
@tifoso1989
The only place you live rent free in is the Land of 1d10cy.
rodewulf (@rodewulf)
23rd December 2021, 22:24
HAL
Why was McLaren 2018 a toxic enviroment exactly? What is the excuse this time?
ttongsul (@ccpbioweapon)
23rd December 2021, 15:13
I wish alonso with his huge ego retires, hes over the hill and in his 40’s he should give Oscar Piastri his seat. Does alonso have blackmail on enstone F1 team?
This ‘inter squad’ battle is meaningless on its own and only ocd david croft and gambling addicts who wager actually care.
ocon got afluke win and done nothing since and alonso has been mediocre midfielder and amassed points by default when the top racers take each over out. Using this Logic (underrated)Kamui Kobayashi is a better driver than Alsono but no one cared when he finished races around 3-6th in 2012 , the main difference is that in liberty media “EVERYONE IS A WINNER” era every tiny accomplishment is astrofurfed as the greatest feat of mankind..
someone or something
23rd December 2021, 15:25
Chip/shoulder, head/rent free?
Or is your goal to generate the least intelligent comment possible for each article you comment on?
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
23rd December 2021, 15:36
Err.. Ok Alonso has a huge Ego.. Oh wait so do just about all WDC’s.
He think he is better than ever, Team thinks he is good… Results show he is as good as young Ocon…
If they want him in the team, and he wants to show up for work.. That is all that is needed.
rodewulf (@rodewulf)
23rd December 2021, 22:12
@jureo
Actually he was already performing a lot better for more than 2/3 of the season. Factoring out incredible luck that Ocon had in Hungary and Saudi Arabia, as well as the five first races in which Alonso was getting up to speed, then Alonso outscore Ocon 64-25.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
27th December 2021, 17:02
Yeah. He seema full of himself but also not unfounded.. And also still good.
rodewulf (@rodewulf)
23rd December 2021, 22:10
@ccpbioweapon
The main difference between them was: consistency. But you’re too silly to understand it, has been showing quite a few times already.
Andrew
24th December 2021, 9:30
I haven’t seen any positive comment on anything from him, every single comment reminds me of that “Old man yells at cloud” meme. I don’t know what happened to him that he’s so miserable.
melanos
24th December 2021, 16:44
Relax and take your meds
Neil (@neilosjames)
23rd December 2021, 15:56
Though he’s not been the Alonso I hoped for, it’s one I’ve been happy seeing around regardless. Think age has caught up and he’s no longer in the very top tier, but he seems… chilled, happy, relaxed. Just racing for the sake of racing and still performing at a high level.
HAL
23rd December 2021, 17:18
A bit too early to judge IMHO. Alonso was back in F1 after 3 years out… I think it’s already a fantastic result to beat (albeit slightly) Ocon over the season. Besides there was a clear improvement over the year, the delta with Ocon would have been bigger if he had performed the whole year at the level he was at the end of the season. Very curious to see how this will pan out next year, but let’s hope Alpine does not blow it with a bad car.
rodewulf (@rodewulf)
23rd December 2021, 22:06
HAL
Exactly. Factoring out incredible luck that Ocon had in Hungary and Saudi Arabia, as well as the five first races in which Alonso was getting up to speed, then Alonso outscore Ocon 64-25. It changes incredibly with a simple removing of outliers, it beocmes quite a margin. No surprise if Ocon is heavily outscored by Alonso in 2022, but I believe in him to push Fernando to new heights in the context of El Plan, just like Sainz is doing to Leclerc.
rodewulf (@rodewulf)
23rd December 2021, 22:36
@neilosjames
No evidence for Alonso no longer capable of performing at the same level of Hamilton and even Verstappen other than the points table, which tells the whole story only to those too sluggish to analyse driving performance properly.
Factoring out incredible luck that Ocon had in Hungary and Saudi Arabia, as well as the five first races in which Alonso was getting up to speed, then Alonso outscore Ocon 64-25. It’s a big mistake to fail to notice trends, and this is clearly on Alonso’s side. That’s why people can’t see many things coming when they were glaring obvious since before.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
24th December 2021, 10:24
Absolutely, agree with this, he might still be performing at top level if given a good enough car, after all he isn’t getting relatively any older than hamilton, who surprised me too in the 2nd half of the year: if hamilton can still be competitive past his prime, so can alonso.
Fantomius (@liko41)
25th December 2021, 10:46
@rodewulf
Strange how you alonsistas always take into account others’ luck, but fail to factor Alonso’s.
As for performing at the same level of Hamilton… well, he wasn’t able to do it when Lewis was rookie.
rodewulf (@rodewulf)
25th December 2021, 22:42
@liko41
Alonso’s luck (or lack of) is factored there. Incidents and rain affected stints are still there on the period of the analysis. Only outliers (more than 10 points swing for an Alpine driver given a luck event) were removed.
Efthymios Ntinos
27th December 2021, 3:07
Yes Lewis was a rookie but there were anomalies with the team. Depending on your age. Have you ever been at a work that you know you are the best but the environment doesn’t help?
Matthew Stephens
23rd December 2021, 17:27
Have they both done well or both done poorly this year? Its hard to say…Ocon was always pretty close with Perez when they were team mates and Perez was blitzed by Max this year.
Also Ocon has still to beat a team mate over a season – amazing to have such a long contract without ever having done so.
rodewulf (@rodewulf)
23rd December 2021, 22:01
Matthew Stephens
Aston Martin car was only slightly slower than Alpine’s and even then, Alpine as a team finished the season scoring more than a double of Aston Martin points. The reason for this was that Alonso and Ocon were much more consistent than Vettel and Stroll. So they were close to each other but higher up on the driving performance rankings, not on a low, similarly to the Ferrari drivers.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
24th December 2021, 10:25
Somewhere in the middle, average season with alonso being better at his best but not being at his best early on.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
24th December 2021, 10:26
Surprising stat about ocon, but if I recall he was forced out of force india to make room for stroll, so if they had chosen to replace perez instead he’d have won that season’s battle.
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
25th December 2021, 13:57
Yeah, it’s impossible to tell. Ricciardo scored double the points over Ocon last season but Norris beat him.
Hulk scored a lot of points at Renault and outscored Sainz who outscored Norris and Leclerc.
Would either Alonso or Ocon have outscored Hulk at Renault? Very hard to tell.
rodewulf (@rodewulf)
25th December 2021, 14:07
@freelittlebirds
Chances are big, specially for Alonso, who was outscored by a team-mate in only 5.56% of his Formula 1 seasons (1 out of 18).
Red Andy (@red-andy)
23rd December 2021, 18:12
I remember at the start of the season Racefans ran some polling on who we predicted would come out on top in each team. This was one of the few battles which took me more than a couple of seconds to think about, so the fact it has proven to be the closest teammate battle of all is not really a surprise. (McLaren was the other one I recall pausing about, though that was much more one-sided in the end).
rodewulf (@rodewulf)
23rd December 2021, 22:52
The closest on the surface. From a performance point of view the closest team-mate battles were Ferrari (Leclerc edging Sainz despite being outscored, less luck to show), Aston Martin (Vettel unconvincingly beating Stroll), and Alfa Romeo (Raikkonen ahead but counting with Giovinazzi’s mistakes to score more points, and being outqualified more often than not).
Only then comes Alpine, the other team in which no driver breezed against his team-mate in performance matters. But the trend clearly favours Alonso during 2/3 of the season, reducing the influence of luck on the standings. Factoring out some incredible luck that Ocon had in Hungary and Saudi Arabia, as well as the five first races in which Alonso was getting up to speed, then Alonso outscore Ocon 64-25.
It’s blatantly obvious which one was the leading driver at Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren, AlphaTauri, Williams and Haas. There’s a clear difference from them to the teams mentioned before. People still have some doubts on who was the best driver at the other four teams cited previously, even if some of those are somewhat a stretch. But it’s not like if the question is completely settled and it’s clear that a team-mate was absolutely thrashed by the other.
Asher911
24th December 2021, 13:22
How did you calculate this?? I have seen same comment 3 times, I want to see points table of this.
rodewulf (@rodewulf)
24th December 2021, 15:49
Asher911
Azerbaijan GP: Alonso (6th) 8pts. – Ocon (Ret) 0pts.
French GP: Alonso (8th) 4pts. – Ocon (14th) 0pts.
Styrian GP: Alonso (9th) 2pts. – Ocon (14th) 0pts.
Austrian GP: Alonso (10th) 1pt. – Ocon (Ret) 0pts.
British GP: Alonso (7th) 6pts. – Ocon (9th) 2pts.
Belgian GP: Alonso (11th) 0pts. – Ocon (7th) 3pts.
Dutch GP: Alonso (6th) 8pts. – Ocon (9th) 2pts.
Italian GP: Alonso (8th) 4pts. – Ocon (10th) 1pt.
Russian GP: Alonso (6th) 8pts. – Ocon (14th) 0pts.
Turkish GP: Alonso (16th) 0pts. – Ocon (10th) 1pt.
United States GP: Alonso (Ret) 0pts. – Ocon (Ret) 0pts.
Mexico City GP: Alonso (9th) 2pts. – Ocon (13th) 0pts.
Sao Paulo GP: Alonso (9th) 2pts. – Ocon (8th) 4pts.
Qatar GP: Alonso (3rd) 15pts. – Ocon (5th) 10pts.
Abu Dhabi GP: Alonso (8th) 4pts. – Ocon (9th) 2pts.
Alonso championship points during the period without outliers: 8+4+2+1+6+0+8+4+8+0+0+2+2+15+4 = 64
Ocon championship points during the period without outliers: 0+0+0+0+2+3+2+1+0+1+0+0+4+10+2 = 25
QED
Alberto
23rd December 2021, 18:19
Wow. I watched the whole season, somehow in my mind Ocon was stuck as slightly better than Alonso. You can’t discount one of the best racing drivers in F1, however I was expecting Ocon to edge Alonso due to his youth and enthusiasm. I expect a bit better from Ocon next year if he wants to stay in the sport for longer. Never the less, the pairing is super strong compared to the others.
rodewulf (@rodewulf)
23rd December 2021, 21:55
Alberto
Don’t be overly dramatic. It has been your mistake. That’s why you couldn’t predict the ascension of both this season.
Mitch
23rd December 2021, 19:29
I think Alonso was underrated this year and could have been second to Max as driver of the year considering:
He is 40 years old and been away from F1 for 2 years. It takes more than a few races to be at full strength.
He had a bad bike accident several weeks before the season began.
His steering was not optimal and it wasn’t changed until France.
He would have beaten Ocon by a larger margin considering those circumstances.
While his speed may have slipped some, his race experience (not only in F1), consistency and smarts more than make up for it. And he rarely makes mistakes, certainly not as many as HAM did this year.
Hamilton experienced it at Hungary – in a much slower car by and older tires yet still able to keep Hamilton behind for several laps and robbing him of a victory.
If he gets a car equivalent to the leaders, there is no reason why he can’t contend for the title. Several drivers including ROS have said it. Prost thinks he is the best driver on the grid.
I think getting a competitive car is his biggest obstacle so his chances are slim. And by his own admission he thinks Max would probably get the best of him.
rodewulf (@rodewulf)
23rd December 2021, 21:53
Mitch
He said Max performed better overall than anyone this season, which is a sensible statement to make. At the same time he believes in himself declaring to be strong enough against to take the fight against Max and Lewis. So he’s not saying he can’t reach that level.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
24th December 2021, 10:33
Interesting that prost considers him the best driver of the grid cause I think alonso and prost are pretty similar, not the quickest at anything but among the quickest in all, with no real weaknesses.
Dan
24th December 2021, 14:42
+1
rodewulf (@rodewulf)
24th December 2021, 15:59
@esploratore1
Yeah, that’s pretty much accurate. This is how they defeated their team-mates at an astonishing rate.
melanos
24th December 2021, 16:51
I mostly agree with you but Alain Prost (and I was his biggest fan) had one real weakness, he was not good in rainy days. While his nemesis Ayrton was arguably the finest wet driver in F1 history.
Ayrton was also a faster qualifyer but Alain had much beteter racecraft. His lack of wet skills kept them more or less balanced. If you count out the wet races, the superiority of Alain on race days in the dry comes out quite clearly.
melanos
24th December 2021, 16:59
A weakness not shared by Fred. Arguably the finest wet driving ever was Hungaroring 2006. Would have been a stunning victory for Fred who started 15th due to a 2 second penalty in qualy, but the team botched his pitstop and in the end it was Jenson’s maiden victory.
Fantomius (@liko41)
25th December 2021, 10:53
Oh Mitch, still giving credit to Rosberg… LOL
Mitch
25th December 2021, 20:42
Not really giving him credit – just saying he was a driver who doesn’t like Alonso.
But I do give credit to ROS for beating HAM.
ruliemaulana (@ruliemaulana)
24th December 2021, 4:12
This Fernando guy should’ve win rookie of the year.
rodewulf (@rodewulf)
24th December 2021, 15:56
@ruliemaulana
Yeah, people thought it would be easy with Fernando. But it’s never easy (with Fernando) even as a rookie.
melanos
24th December 2021, 16:51
Aha, absolutely ;]
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
25th December 2021, 13:54
It’s never good when 2 teammates perform equally and find themselves in the middle of the standings. The paddock rarely believes that both were outstanding and top 5 drivers for the season. More than likely, both performed above average, average, or below average and it’s impossible for anyone to split the drivers’ performances.
Especially when Ricciardo nearly scored double the points that Ocon had scored last year and he’s not doing that well against Norris.
Granted, Alonso has a few “get out of jail” cards he can spare but this isn’t a good look for either driver.
Evan
26th December 2021, 0:49
@ Michael
It seems like you are merely speculating which is OK but it proves nothing.
Read Mitch post above.
Alonso was at a big disadvantage this year for the reasons he mentions.
He had an excellent season considering the circumstances by anyone’s standards. .
Next year will present an even playing field and be a much better indicator.