Esteban Ocon ended the season with 23 factors, nearly all of which got here from one beautiful outcome within the Brazilian Grand Prix, the place he completed second. 4 Tenth-place finishes on observe (one in every of which subsequently grew to become ninth) have been his solely different factors scores.
He collected little greater than half as many factors as his workforce mate. However as Ocon’s relationship with Alpine fractured, his outcomes appeared to undergo, and he ended up leaving the workforce a race early.
His performances have been usually higher than the outcomes mirrored, particularly early within the season when the chubby authentic A524 was at its least efficient. Ocon dragged it to eleventh in China, then went one higher in Miami to choose up the workforce’s first level of the 12 months. This was thanks partly to getting his palms on Alpine’s new ground earlier than workforce mate Pierre Gasly, who tended to lag behind him within the opening races.
The pair have had a fractious relationship at occasions and it exploded once more in Monaco when Ocon, exhibiting he nonetheless hasn’t realized to depart margin when racing his workforce mate, lunged at Gasly on the opening lap at Portier, inflicting contact. Whereas Gasly continued, Ocon’s race was ruined. Quickly afterwards Alpine introduced, to little shock, that Ocon wouldn’t return in 2025.
Esteban Ocon
| Finest | Worst | |
|---|---|---|
| GP begin | 4 | 20 (x3) |
| GP end | 2 | 18 (x2) |
| Factors | 23 | |
It was putting that, from then on, Ocon appeared to get the tough finish of Alpine’s technique calls. He reluctantly and belatedly complied with their order to let Gasly via in Canada, although it was a borderline name at greatest. In Austria Ocon ran forward of his workforce mate earlier than being ‘undercut’ by him.
There have been different events when, even taking the A524’s shortcomings into consideration, Ocon wasn’t as much as scratch. He was poor in Zandvoort, and dropped out in Q1 in Mexico whereas Gasly reached the ultimate spherical and topped up his factors tally.
A wonderful drive to an eventual ninth-place end at Spa regarded more likely to be the spotlight of his season till Brazil. There Ocon demonstrated each his ability and his ruthlessness: he claimed fourth on the grid after compromising each Gasly and Max Verstappen throughout qualifying, briefly led and delivered Alpine’s greatest results of the season with second place.
However simply two races later, having misplaced time with a botched pit cease in Las Vegas and been taken out at the beginning in Qatar, Alpine selected to point out Ocon the door a race early. It clearly wasn’t a mirrored image on the standard of the job he had carried out for them.
RaceFans’ driver rankings are based mostly partly on the scores awarded to drivers for his or her performances in every spherical in addition to different elements.
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