Esteban Ocon has had a lonely race in Saudi Arabia. The Frenchman does think that the Alpine drivers managed to keep the pace under control after the cars in front of them drove away from them. In any case, the Alpine rider is happy with the points they were able to score, as Ocon couldn’t pull that off in Bahrain.
Alpine cemented itself as the fifth team on the grid at the Saudi Arabia race. The French team stayed away from the front pack, but also managed to gain a good margin for Haas and the other teams in between. That meant that Ocon, who took home the points from P8, drove a bit in no man’s land and therefore had a somewhat lonely race. According to the Frenchman, Alpine does not have the right package and that is why it cannot fight with Red Bull Racing, Aston Martin, Ferrari and Mercedes at the moment.
“It was a bit lonely,” says Ocon to the international media when he describes his race in Jeddah. “You know, we weren’t fast enough to fight up front and we did what we could do at the time. But when the drivers pulled out at the front, we controlled the pace and tried to get the cars across the line, and that’s what we did,” Ocon continued. “Scoring points with two cars, I’m happy with that,” says the driver from Evreux. “I’m happy to finally start my season without incident. Next time we want to fight at the front.’
Ocon: ‘We are not at all where we want to be’
The Frenchman did not want to say much about the upgrades that Alpine will make to the car’s package. “It’s still the beginning of the season and I don’t want to say much about it,” said Ocon. “I think there will be a race during the season on the development of the car, so we need to focus on that. Throughout the season we have to keep up with the other teams who are now a bit ahead of us. Because we are not where we want to be at all’, concludes Ocon.
