Esteban Ocon and Alpine have mutually decided to not renew their partnership beyond the current end of the deal in F1 2024.
In a slightly surprising news, Alpine announced the departure of Ocon from its F1 team at the end of the 2024 season. His current deal will run out then and they have mutually decided to not continue their partnership further into 2025.
The change comes at a time when Bruno Famin hinted of consequences and even brought names like Jack Doohan and Victor Martins in the news. This will end a long-standing partnership between Alpine and Ocon which started in 2020.
In the period so far, together they have achieved a win and three podiums with 16 more races to go in 2024. The partition opens up a vacant seat at Alpine, while also throws open speculation about Ocon as to where the Frenchman will head to if he stays in F1.
“It’s been a significant period of my life to be racing at this team in Formula 1,” said Ocon. “While I’ve been here for five years as a full-time racing driver, my professional career started at Enstone back when I was a teenager, so it will always be a special place for me.
“We have had some great moments together, some tough moments as well, and I am certainly grateful to everyone at the team for these memorable times. I will announce my plans very soon but, in the meantime, my full focus is on delivering on track for this team and having a successful remainder of the season.”
Team boss Famin added: “We would like to firstly thank Esteban for his commitment to the team for the past five years. During his time, we have celebrated some fantastic moments together, the best of which coming at the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix with a memorable race win.
“We still have 16 races to complete in 2024 together with a clear objective: to continue to work tirelessly as a team to push for the best on-track results. We wish Esteban the very best for the next chapter of his driving career when that moment comes.”
Here’s Esteban Ocon on Monaco GP happening
Here’s Pierre Gasly on Esteban Ocon tangle
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