Ryan Reynolds' F1 team descends into further farce after 'unexplainable' call
Esteban Ocon called Alpine's team orders "unexplainable" and insisted he's the "good guy" as his relationship with the team further deteriorated at the Canadian Grand Prix
Esteban Ocon labelled Alpine’s team orders at the Canadian Grand Prix as “unexplainable” as he insisted he is the “nice guy” in the Formula One team’s civil war.
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The relationship between Alpine and driver Ocon continued to deteriorate at the end of the Grand Prix on Sunday as the Frenchman finished behind his teammate Pierre Gasly following a call through the team radio for him to let Gasly through.
It has already been confirmed that Ocon will leave Alpine at the end of the season when his contract expires following a huge in-house incident that saw the 27-year-old involved in a first-lap crash attempting to make an audacious overtake on his teammate at the Monaco Grand Prix.
And his farewell season with the team he’s called home since 2020 took another difficult turn as he voiced his displeasure on the team radio as he took the chequered flag less than three-tenths of a second behind Gasly.
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Ocon had been leading Gasly and Daniel Ricciardo before the Australian overtook him on lap 67 of 70 in Montreal after his car had started to lose power due to an energy management issue that meant he couldn’t use the full extent of the A524's power. With two laps remaining, he was asked by his engineer Josh Peckett to concede ninth to Gasly who was lapping faster.
He initially refused the order, saying “forget it”, before eventually agreeing to swap on lap 69 believing the condition was that Gasly would give the position back on the final lap if he was unable to catch Ricciardo. However, the places were never swapped back despite his teammate failing to pass Ricciardo due to Nico Hulkenberg posing too much of a threat in pinching the last points place off Ocon in 11th.
Ocon didn’t hold back when he was asked following the race about his thoughts on the team orders, he said: "It is unexplainable, that one. I've always respected the instructions that I've been given as a driver, and I've done that once more. I'm the nice guy!
"I've done my part of the job - the team hasn't, honestly. It is not fair on that race. So I'm very frustrated with how things have been played out. I guess there are a lot of reasons, so we'll let the benefit of the doubt go on."
He added that he didn’t feel the swapping of places made sense in the first instance, he continued: "No, because we were two and a half seconds behind Daniel. In one lap, not even a Red Bull can catch up the gap. So, no, it makes no sense. So either we don't know what we are doing or we don't realise how far it is, or it's something else. It wasn't the right decision."
Ocon’s replacement at the French side hasn’t yet been confirmed. But it’s certainly a cause for concern for minority investors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, who joined an investor group taking a 24% stake in Alpine Racing last year.
