Alpine are happy to allow Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon to continue to fight each other on track but won’t hesitate to call off future scraps if it risks costing the team points.
The pair fought for position over several laps in the early stages of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix but lost up to one-and-a-half seconds per lap at times.Ocon said he enjoyed the fight with his team mate but appreciated it had come at a cost to the team’s position in the race as it allowed Valtteri Bottas and Kevin Magnussen to close on the pair.
“Of course when you fight, the same as in go-karts, you lose time, it’s normal,” he said. “But [in] one-stop race, track position is quite important.
“We are allowed to race by the team. It’s always a privilege to race with Fernando so it makes me smile.”
Although the pair came close to contact at times, Alonso said they took care not to collide. “We know before we start that we can race but never touch each other, so we never do,” he said.
He eventually got the better of his team mate and pulled away before retiring with a technical problem. “I felt that my car was in the window working a little bit better today so I had the opportunity to overtake and pull away a little bit,” he said. “The main threat, as I said, it was Bottas. Bottas was fast today and it was not easy to keep him behind.”
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Team principal Otmar Szafnauer said he was satisfied with how his two drivers conducted themselves. “They did exactly what we talked about before the race, and it was good for everybody.
However he admitted they were “losing a little bit more time than I anticipated” and confirmed that if they were in the same position at the end of the race Alpine would call off the fight.
“We will definitely do that,” he said. “In all my time in Formula 1, when I was in a position to be able to tell the drivers what to do if, at the end of the race, 10 laps to go, even 15 laps to go, there is no value in swapping the two, meaning you can’t catch the guy in front of you and nobody behind you can catch the two of you. You hold station.
“That’s really hard to do at the beginning of the race because you can you can’t predict what’s going to happen. But towards the end of the race, if there’s 10 laps, 15 laps, 20 laps to go, it is about maximising the team points. If a ‘hold station’ means maximising team points, that’s the way to go.”
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2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix
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grapmg (@)
28th March 2022, 13:56
Thanks for allowing them to race I enjoyed it. Hope more teams will follow this example because this is what the fans are tuning in for. Maybe the FIA should reward this kind of inter team battles at the end of the year extra bonus points for the best battle or at least some jelly beans.
amian
28th March 2022, 14:00
Absolutely agreed! I hope the sponsors appreciated the spotlight the fight gave to both cars.
But as far as awarding points, that idea makes no sense. You don’t allow style-points. It’s not figure skating.
SpaFrancorchamps (@spafrancorchamps)
28th March 2022, 15:20
BWT was covered all over the screen all race. I hope it makes sponsors push for team fights too.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
28th March 2022, 15:43
Again, like bahrain 2014 nobody allowed nobody to race. Nobody had the guts to decidedly order them not to fight and end up seeing both drivers disregard the call. Eventually when the team told Ocon not to fight back, Ocon made the strategic blunder of losing DRS then proceeded to publicly roast his team, which prompted the director to cut to Otmar’s bwt face. Alpine in shambles.
erikje
28th March 2022, 14:13
I noticed some of the old ocon. Fighting with a teammate and losing the big picture. Ultimately crashing into his teammate.
It was only by the talent of Alonso nothing really happened.
Retired (@jeff1s)
28th March 2022, 16:14
Yep, I am French ans following Ocon since the early days – but I was shouting at him yesterday – as did my friends – because he seemed so stubborn and not thinking about the bigger pictures, the team itself.
dan
28th March 2022, 19:39
Do you think lewis had talent in brazil or of not turning in in jeddah t 1?
erikje
28th March 2022, 21:46
It seems you are a bit stuck in a selfinflicting loop.
There are more (and better) drivers then Lewis.
Last year he should have been black flagged for his attack on max in Silverstone.
That would have avoided a lot of nastyness.
PT
30th March 2022, 9:40
Indeed! But he was compensated for it at Abu Dhabi.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
28th March 2022, 14:14
Wonder if there’s a smarter way of working together using DRS to improve lap times for both cars, instead of shutting doors on each other. Something like slipstreaming round Silverstone and Monza 50 years ago, but with today’s aero…
Palindnilap (@palindnilap)
28th March 2022, 14:35
That’s what I thought when watching them battling. Some synchronized position swap every lap on the straight with DRS would have been much more efficient time-wise. Probably not easy to do with Bottas lurking though.
baasbas
28th March 2022, 23:47
@bullfrog
Bump drafting
:-D
amian
28th March 2022, 17:17
@bullfrog
That’s a great point! It’s totally possible. We saw it with Verstappen and Perez in season’s finale as well as during a couple of qualifyings. Aerodynamical draft is much stronger in F1 than it is in cycling, and then you have DRS on top of that.
JA
29th March 2022, 15:59
Don’t think it is possible in general, the disruption from the other car is still too big, or so it seems. I went back to lap 25 in the battle between Magnussen and Hamilton. On lap 25 Magnussen “backed off” letting Hamilton go, but set up perfectly to get DRS and he was still slower compared to lap 24 on which he overtook Hamilton – but they both kept loosing time overall despite the fairly clean overtaking.
There is one track though I believe it could be possible, in Abu Dhabi, with the two major DRS zones on straights right after one another.
MattDS (@mattds)
28th March 2022, 14:48
There’s something about pink cars, Szafnauer and Ocon that tends to cause these types of fitghts and subsequent rules. :)
Jere (@jerejj)
28th March 2022, 15:46
@mattds Indeed. Their battle reminded me of the 2017 Ocon-Perez incidents.
pastaman
28th March 2022, 15:43
Other than the first block that Ocon threw, was fair racing
BlueChris (@bluechris)
28th March 2022, 15:49
It will go well im certain lol.
A team is above everyone, easily yesterday when Alonso first attacked, they could had said as other teams say “let him pass he seem faster”. With what happened yesterday, Russel went away.
Qeki (@qeki)
28th March 2022, 19:30
After the first overtake attemp I feared that they would crash. It looked like mclaren alonso v 2017 Ocon but they didn’t even touch. Well done guys
Todfod (@todfod)
29th March 2022, 7:20
It was entertaining to watch, but definitely hampered the perfect result for the Alpine team. I’m actually quite surprised that Alonso appears to be more of a team player since last season, than Ocon. He drove his rear end off in Hungary to keep Lewis behind and give Ocon the win. Generally, when he was off pace as compared to his teammate, he wouldn’t put up too much of a fight. Ocon though, would risk collision and put the team behind his goal of finishing in front of his teammate.
Ocon though, still feels like an insecure driver who feels like he has something to prove. He’s only proved himself to be immature, a poor team player, and a slightly better than mediocre talent over the years. I hope Alonso smashes him to bits this season.