Esteban Ocon, Alpine, Miami International Autodrome, 2024

2024 Formula 1 driver rankings #11: Esteban Ocon

Formula 1

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Esteban Ocon ended the season with 23 points, almost all of which came from one stunning result in the Brazilian Grand Prix, where he finished second. Four 10th-place finishes on track (one of which subsequently became ninth) were his only other points scores.

He collected little more than half as many points as his team mate. But as Ocon’s relationship with Alpine fractured, his results appeared to suffer, and he ended up leaving the team a race early.

His performances were often better than the results reflected, especially early in the season when the overweight original A524 was at its least effective. Ocon dragged it to 11th in China, then went one better in Miami to pick up the team’s first point of the year. This was thanks in part to getting his hands on Alpine’s new floor before team mate Pierre Gasly, who tended to lag behind him in the opening races.

The pair have had a fractious relationship at times and it exploded again in Monaco when Ocon, showing he still hasn’t learned to leave margin when racing his team mate, lunged at Gasly on the opening lap at Portier, causing contact. While Gasly continued, Ocon’s race was ruined. Soon afterwards Alpine announced, to little surprise, that Ocon would not return in 2025.

Esteban Ocon

Best Worst
GP start 4 20 (x3)
GP finish 2 18 (x2)
Points 23

It was striking that, from then on, Ocon appeared to get the rough end of Alpine’s strategy calls. He reluctantly and belatedly complied with their order to let Gasly through in Canada, though it was a borderline call at best. In Austria Ocon ran ahead of his team mate before being ‘undercut’ by him.

There were other occasions when, even taking the A524’s shortcomings into account, Ocon wasn’t up to scratch. He was poor in Zandvoort, and dropped out in Q1 in Mexico while Gasly reached the final round and topped up his points tally.

An excellent drive to an eventual ninth-place finish at Spa looked likely to be the highlight of his season until Brazil. There Ocon demonstrated both his skill and his ruthlessness: he claimed fourth on the grid after compromising both Gasly and Max Verstappen during qualifying, briefly led and delivered Alpine’s best result of the season with second place.

But just two races later, having lost time with a botched pit stop in Las Vegas and been taken out at the start in Qatar, Alpine chose to show Ocon the door a race early. It clearly wasn’t a reflection on the quality of the job he had done for them.

RaceFans’ driver rankings are based partly on the scores awarded to drivers for their performances in each round as well as other factors.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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15 comments on “2024 Formula 1 driver rankings #11: Esteban Ocon”

  1. Seems like Team Enstone continuous to be more opportunistic and ruthless with their drivers than even Helmut Marko is.

    Since Renault bought back the team they first had K-mag and Palmer, ditched K-Mag for Hulk to lead the team.
    When they replaced Jolyon with Sainz that was probably the most justified move.
    But soon they jumped on the opportunity to get in Danny Ric, shifting all the focus on him, leaving Hulkenberg as a number two before excitedly bringing in a French driver to the French team.

    Anyway Ricciardo had seen enough after 1 year to decide he was better of elsewhere, so there was room for the Alonso comeback.
    But also he didn’t last too long in the team, triggering the whole Piastri fiasco that ended in them hiring Gasly as sort of a third choice.
    Clearly Ocon as the incumbent driver would lead the team now, or would he?

    After two years, they ousted Ocon instead to bring in Doohan even a race early.
    And better yet, now Doohan is under massive threat to loose his seat to Franco before starting his first season.

    Amazing!

    1. El Pollo Loco
      24th January 2025, 16:38

      They kept Ocon for five seasons. In fact, it was another insane Laurent Rossi decision, handcuffing themselves to Ocon w/a three-year guaranteed extension when the man had absolutely zero options that led to the humiliating debacle of losing both Alonso and Piastri in the same weekend which in turn led to the team imploding when Rossi tried to blame Otmar for his own failure, fired him and began the merry-go-round of team principals and staff exodus. So, the only guy they stuck to and who stuck with them ironically had a major part in bringing the team low.

  2. El Pollo Loco
    24th January 2025, 16:30

    I quite dislike Ocon, but the guy was thrashing Gasly until Renault’s always even tempered management decided to essentially drop in the middle of the Monaco weekend.

    1. More like Ocon dropped Alpine than the other way around, I’d say!

      1. Ocon was looking for his way out as early as November 2023, making contact with both Haas and Audi. He was likely Audi’s best option if Sainz would bail out of the deal (which he did), but Ocon opted to not sign with Audi for the same reason as Sainz – Hinwil infrastructure would need several years of investment to be competitive, this team just looks like it’s going to be a backmarker for next 2 or 3 seasons, before they’d be ready to improve throughout the grid.

        I believe he never was considered by Williams, but he was already close to signing with Haas at the moment he was informed Alpine will not offer him an extension. Ayao Komatsu was really keen to work with Ocon, and they were just working on the details until June/July.

    2. Yeah, I am somewhat baffled by seing Gasly end up ahead of Ocon for this ranking.

      1. Every end-of-season ranking is prone to some recency bias. Gasly scored a solid amount of points in Qatar and Abu Dhabi while Ocon was taken out on lap 1 and sidelined in favour of Doohan (who failed to score). With a team so rarely able to score substantial points, it’s things like this that can wildly swing the outcome of a head to head battle (on points, anyway).

        I don’t expect Gasly to be much higher up the ranking though. As the two season review also noted, these two were closely matched.

        1. El Pollo Loco
          26th January 2025, 13:50

          Recovery/recency bias is one thing. Not accounting for a driver’s change of circumstances within the team is another. If Gasly ends up only one position ahead of Ocon, no big deal.

      2. All you have to do is watch Ocon’s pit where the crew don’t even show up to figure out what was going on.

  3. I’m always a bit mystified by the hate given to Ocon.

    I remember watching the Singapore GP years ago when he and another rookie were driving and it was quite noticeable that his driving was way way smoother and faster. The fact is he’s a darn good driver but because he won’t take a back seat to anyone, he’s considered toxic.

    If he was, for example, in a top car, say RBR, I’m quite sure he’d be running far closer, if not in front of the current No1 driver there. Unfortunately that’ll never happen because it would definitely be a case of 2 roosters, 1 henhouse and teams these days are just too reluctant to risk it.

    Hopefully someone will eventually take that opportunity instead of avoiding him.

    1. Thanks for saying it! Really, many (many!) people think it’s fine when Max does all that he does every single race. Ocon historically is a much, much cleaner driver compared to him.

      As a reminder, Ocon has beaten Max in F3 and Alonso in a head to head battle in the Alpine. People seem to forget it, and definitely don’t give him enough credit.

      1. typically if drivers or organizations can’t ‘own’ their drivers, meaning that the driver is racing for himself, they will resort to the ‘hater tactics’ to try and sabotage people in the public eye.

        If Doohan gets booted after a few races it will be something of an ironic point for Ocon, as JD was one of his more ardent public opponents, spraying shade on him w/ guys like F1.com.

        One of the narratives I am looking forward to bearing fruit this year. The biggest of course is HAM ending up on the top of the shelf, pointing to the rear of his car while waving to Toto.

    2. El Pollo Loco
      26th January 2025, 13:56

      Guy has fallen out with every single teammate he’s ever had except for Ricciardo, but only because he was spanked so badly he couldn’t clash with him. The guy is willing to lose multiple positions or crash out if it means keeping his teammate behind him. He’s come across as petulant many times and unwilling to accept any accountability. Let me put it this way: I started off as an Ocon fan and over time he turned me into someone I strongly dislike and there’s only two drivers on the grid I strong dislike. Ironically, the other one is Gasly.

  4. I like Ocon but there is nothing he did in 2024 that makes him P11. Alpine were alternatively bringing upgrades to one car in first half and Ocon seems to be doing well when he had the upgrades on his car. But in the second half his wheels simply came off. His performance was below average with the exception of Brazil. He did complain that he is not getting the same car which Alpine denied. I also think Gasly probably got all the upgrades because the difference was big between the two.

    This year I expect Ocon to beat his team mate comfortably. Bearmen did out qualify Hulk ( who is way overrated ) both times when he was in Haas. So he could have some good races as well. But overall Ocon should come on top.

  5. I think the #11-18 group (possibly #10 and #9, thinking about it) is so close that minor points of interpretation will make a big difference to position. This feels like a fair response to Ocon’s season (the main impact on his performances being in a team whose management had no sense of proportion, planning or interest in information that didn’t suit its pre-conceived narratives). While Ocon was the proximate cause of Alpine’s travails in Monaco, it was a particularly chaotic couple of corners and it was more or less inevitable that someone was going to crash, no matter what Ocon did. Half the grid has something similar in their copybook this year; Ocon’s misfortune was in the colour and management of the car he hit.

    Whatever Alpine’s management is trying to hide is the primary cause of its misfortunes. I cannot help but feel Ocon was the winner in his duel with Gasly – simply because he found a way to escape.

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