Esteban Ocon placed the blame for his crash in qualifying for today’s sprint race wholly at the feet of his rival Fernando Alonso.
The pair made contact at the exit of the Senna Esses, turn three, towards the end of the first phase of qualifying.Ocon was on a flying lap at the time and tangled with Alonso, who had pulled to the right to let him by. The Aston Martin driver was moving towards the racing line at the moment the pair collided, but Ocon also drifted towards his rival after his car got out of shape at the exit kerb of turn two.
Following the contact Ocon’s Alpine made heavy contact with the barrier. “It was a big one,” he said afterwards. “It was a hard impact. I’m feeling a bit sore obviously after that one but it doesn’t matter we’ll go on racing.”
He was frustrated by the collision as he believes he was on course to progress to the next phase of qualifying. “It’s a difficult one to swallow because we were on for a good improvement on that lap we were going to go through in SQ2,” said Ocon.
“But we found Fernando in the way. I heard people saying I lost the car, it’s not true. We had corrections like that throughout the whole paddock, even on Lando [Norris’] quickest lap he had a correction there and ran wide like this.
“Fernando steered to the left in the middle of the corner and didn’t leave enough space and we collided. But in the end it doesn’t matter about that, that’s something that happened, obviously we will now go on and focus on the race.”
The stewards are investigating the incident and summoned both drivers to speak to them. “He was trying to counteract all the arguments, saying he left enough space but reality is if Fernando is not there on the right we don’t collide,” said Ocon.
Alonso said the collision was a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. “Unfortunately we could not complete the qualifying,” he said. “It’s a shame – both cars out of qualifying now, a lot of damage on both cars I guess. So not the way we wanted.
“I didn’t see the replay yet. Someone told me that he lost the car, apparently, a little bit. One of those situations – wrong place, wrong moment.”
Alpine say they are “confident” they will be able to repair Ocon’s car in time for him to take part in the sprint race at 3:30pm local time.
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Sviat
4th November 2023, 17:09
What? Is Ocon insane? This is absurd.
OOliver
4th November 2023, 19:23
I believe the car lost control of Ocon.
Billy Rae Flop
4th November 2023, 20:52
Not really that absurd if you actually think about it. When you slide like that naturally the car will drift further wide. A bit of oversteer doesn’t mean losing the car. Infact ocon had the car under control just before contact. Combination of the slide drifting wide and alonso kinking left caused the crash.
Maybe you have seen the wrong replays but ocon had collected the slide and was under control just before the contact..
https://twitter.com/startonpole/status/1720813834254856387?t=X3fELcEJxC88QqSf_GOpQA&s=19
Nick T.
4th November 2023, 23:30
Ocon and Gasly. Two nightmare drivers to be around. Such a history of smashing people, especially Ocon. You have to try really hard to have contact with Alonso. He’s had the Grand Prix races in history and had still NEVER had a contact with a major rival. Unlike most drivers, there is no famous contact/coming together moment you can instantly picture. Meanwhile, Ocon already has half-a-dozen famous crashes.
roadrunner (@roadrunner)
5th November 2023, 0:50
Ocon yes, but Gasly??
Shimks (@shimks)
5th November 2023, 7:50
Exactly. Ocon yes, not Gasly.
asd
4th November 2023, 17:20
Either he lost control of the car or he didn’t and steered purposely into Alonso. These are the two only options. So I guess he is claming the latter was the case…
Fernando did steer to the left, but he was still far away from the normal driving line.
Riccard
5th November 2023, 10:33
The headline is written in a way that makes him seem unreasonable. But if you read the article and his quotes, he’s just being a bit more nuanced. His line is that he didn’t “lose control”, he just had to correct mid-corner, which is fairly normal; and Alonso should have left room for that.
I can understand a driver being sensitive, just after crashing, about being told they “lost control” when they were still making it through the corner really quickly.
It’s clear that Alonso left a cars-width and isn’t “at fault”, but I get where Ocon is coming from, and in his place I would also be frustrated that if Alonso had been even further over, Ocon would have corrected his ‘moment’ and been through at speed.
BLS (@brightlampshade)
4th November 2023, 17:24
Ocon is aware there’s a camera on his car right?
Eric
5th November 2023, 14:13
Ocon is aware the the radio feed is heard worldwide to I think?
Jere (@jerejj)
4th November 2023, 17:30
Lol, some stubborness if he can’t see any faults in his actions.
anon
4th November 2023, 17:49
@jerejj you say that, but I am coming across some people on other forums calling Alonso “stupid” and saying that, since Alonso had just seen one of the McLaren’s (possibly Piastri) having a snap of oversteer and running wide in Turn 2, he should have not put his car in just the right place that, if Ocon made a similar mistake, he’d oversteer right into Alonso.
RBAlonso (@rbalonso)
4th November 2023, 19:08
I know you’re just quoting the opinion of others but to play devil’s advocate – where was Alonso supposed to be? He can’t be in turn 2, he can’t accelerate and dart left in the way of those coming out of the pits (who he can’t see). He has to be to the right of turn 3 well off the racing line. He does that.
Should he drive onto the grass just in case the driver coming past happens to make a clumsy error?
roadrunner (@roadrunner)
5th November 2023, 0:55
A car’s widths more to the right he could have been or he could have accelerated at racing speed and let him by on the straight 5 seconds later.
Still of course it was Ocon who had the little snap so it was just unlucky…
RBAlonso (@rbalonso)
5th November 2023, 6:38
Even at a cars width to the right he’d still be lucky not to be collected, Ocon is still sliding when the contact is made. Coming off the kerb Ocon’s left hand is at his right mirror. I don’t think every driver letting another one by has an obligation to be tight to the track edge; what Alonso did was fine, Ocon just lost control.
Alonso can’t go further ahead as there is already a car ahead of him, he has to be on the outside of turn 3.
RandomMallard
4th November 2023, 17:31
If you didn’t lose control of the car, what are you correcting? Ocon seems to always get involved in some very weird and often stupid incidents, and only 2 things are consistent through them all: his presence, and his insistence it wasn’t his fault…
oConartist
4th November 2023, 17:33
He was turning right through a left hand corner for fun then?
ZoemDoef
5th November 2023, 10:14
Maybe he remembered what Lightning McQueen said; “Turn right to go left” :-)
Sham (@sham)
4th November 2023, 17:37
He’s always been this way. A man who doesn’t learn from his mistakes is a liability.
Ciaran (@ciaran)
4th November 2023, 17:41
I know elite sportspeople have to be egotistical but this is unbelievable. He doesn’t have the raw pace to justify this kind of arrogance!
kcrossle (@kcrossle)
4th November 2023, 17:48
People commenting so far don’t seem to understand that racing cars at speed, at the limit, may have moments of understeer, or oversteer, or have the car step out. This has been true for a long time. These occurrences do not equate to “losing control”. For reference look up “Gilles Villeneuve”.
The car stepped out. Alonso was there. End.
T
4th November 2023, 18:29
you don’t even have to go that far, Ocon was done “correcting” before the collision and more importantly was in that position because he was ridding a curb thanks to the space he was left.
Alonso was full left lock closing the already limited space he had left.
There is a reason why “the president of motorsports” has been oddly quite about this. This is usually the time he deploys alonso-speak.
If this was Max and Lewis, with Max out, this comment section would have torn Lewis a new hole.
AlexS
4th November 2023, 19:28
That is false. video shows the huge space that Ocon let while crashing into Alonso.
Tommy C (@tommy-c)
5th November 2023, 0:04
Full lock aye? Did he think he was rounding the station hairpin in Monaco for a brief moment….?
T
5th November 2023, 13:05
Fair enough, maybe full lock is an exaggeration. I’ll own that happily
Alonso was steering left and left enough to close the gap he left ocon. Like he said wrong place, wrong time.
I’m fine with the stewards decision. I’m just arguing against the notion Alonso is blameless here. Like I already said, if this was lewis and max, with max out of qualifying the narrative in this comment section would have been less one sided. Monza 2021 has thought me that.
Frank
5th November 2023, 1:15
Huh?
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
4th November 2023, 21:14
That is true. He could’ve hold the car. And it’d have been fine if he had said: “I had a bit of a moment and Fernando was there”. But he put entirely the blame on Alonso. How can Fernando be at fault there? Other than disappearing, he had nothing much to do to avoid anything. You don’t make way to other cars expecting them to be all out of control, you move aside expecting them to go around the corner normally which Ocon didn’t do. So if anything it’s “one of those things”. But blaming Alonso is so stunningly stupid!
AlexS
4th November 2023, 17:55
Ocon really do not appear to have any self awareness.
So he wants the all the track for himself!?
RandomMallard
4th November 2023, 18:03
For the record, the Stewards have ruled No Further Action with no driver wholly or predominantly to blame. The full document is here (the nature of the link means this may automatically download the PDF file)
David B
4th November 2023, 18:32
Ocon needs a trip to Specsavers.
Jim
4th November 2023, 20:37
Now I hear a Ocon called Alonso an idiot.
It was an unfortunate incident and neither driver was fully at fault although Esteban lost control if only for a split second so it’s on him.
As Fernando said, wrong place wrong time. End of story. No need to call people bad names.
joe jopling (@jop452)
5th November 2023, 14:10
There is still some hostility between Ocon to Alonso….think Ocon was trying to get as close as he could, but lost control…if Alonso had not been there, Ocon would have gone off the track anyway
Eric
5th November 2023, 14:20
All this proves is that Ocon is a journeyman of a driver, who had manipulated the Alpine management into supporting him as their premier driver over the past few years. Once Gasly joined this year, Ocon is angry with his former team mate at Aston Martin, because he wanted to own Alpine and Alonso, and ensure he was considered better than their former double world champion, even though Ocon himself takes full credit for a midfield car going nowhere fast. Ocon is the reason Alpine are going backwards, and this latest attempt at sabotage will cause the management to ditch him for a Liam Lawson who does not put on a helmut and create explosive on track situations, whilst being politically motivated outside the cockpit.
Dale
5th November 2023, 15:44
This guy definitely swaps his ass and his brain as soon as he gets behind the wheel.
melanos
5th November 2023, 21:31
The second most toxic driver at the grid. His opinions are not worth my time, or anybody’s time I guess.
And when was the last time Fred caused a collision? That probably was karting.