Alpine pair of Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon agreed it was hard but felt it was fair after their latest fight in F1 Austrian GP.
Yet another grand prix and yet another Alpine battle. The F1 Austrian GP saw another round of ‘no inch given’ tussle between Gasly and Ocon for what became a crucial duel for the last point, which the former took after winning the battle early on.
The two made a good start against Haas initially and Ocon was ahead of Gasly. It remains that way after the pit stop too, but the latter showed slightly better pace than the former. It took him radio messages and couple of laps to get by but not before a hard fight.
They even had to take the run-off but crucially avoided any contact to drop out. Gasly eventually got through Ocon and scored the last point. It was hairy for the Alpine pitwall, but the drivers felt it was fair, even though it was quite aggressive between the two.
There will be talks again, but it is unclear what comes of it since both anyhow engage in a feisty duel against each other. “I mean it was intense,” said Gasly to media. “Some will say a bit too much, I’m sure on the pit wall they didn’t really like the fact that I had to run wide, because I wasn’t really given any space but never easy, right?
“So at the end of the day, I had to find another way to get past him and that’s what I did. But I was expecting to be [have] slightly more space from my teammate. It was as clear as it could be before the race, but I can only control what happens in my car, I can’t control his car, and it is what it is.
“I’m sure we’ll review that. This is something we’ll have to discuss between us. But we’ve already discussed and we’ll see if there’s anything else we can do,” summed up Gasly, as Ocon somewhat echoed his teammate in terms of fair racing, even though hard.
“It was all hard and fair,” said Ocon. “So, fine. I didn’t receive anything [instruction].” The Frenchman had bits flying off his car, though, amid that battle which he wasn’t sure that it had happened. His pace dropped off once Gasly went by him.
He even lost to Charles Leclerc at the end. “That’s just crazy that everyone tells me that,” continued Ocon. “Because I just went to speak to the engineers, and they didn’t see it. If we have a piece of carbon flying, and we don’t see it on performance load, it’s quite worrying, I have to say.
“So I’m going to have a good check around the car with the guys, see what it is. Maybe that explains why we were not quick (laughs). But the guys didn’t tell me anything. So we need to understand, if that’s something that has happened, and I’ve made it lose performance, because then it’s easier to explain,” summed up Ocon.
Overall, the Alpine pair did put up a fight and even though they lost seventh to Haas, they looked a touch better than Williams and Stake F1 Team, while mostly around the Visa Cash App RB cars, where Daniel Ricciardo pipped them to score more.
“It wasn’t the best race overall, on our side,” said Ocon. “Unfortunately, we had a dream start, because we managed to pass Nico. And that was the aim. It was the car that we wanted to fight initially, and I got in front of him. So that was really good. But after that, yeah, we were just not quick, for some reason. Not being able to hold them.
“And I was just falling back slowly, slowly, all the way until the end. So yeah, it wasn’t ideal. Difficult to explain why at the moment because it’s an outlier compared to the rest of the weekend where we had good pace. And, yeah, we race in a couple of days. So hopefully, that will be different.
“It’s encouraging to see that we are able to fight for interesting positions, at least some reward. Yeah, it’s been going on the upward trajectory since two races. So it’s good,” summed up Ocon, as Gasly echoed the sentiments after scoring the one point.
“It was decent indeed, apart from that it was a good race,” said Gasly. “I had a very strong Lap 1 after not the best start. So, we will review that, but then after a strong Lap 1, we managed pretty well the whole race with a tyre we had, we finished on the medium. I felt like the tyres were quite gone at the end.
“I tried to get close to Daniel Ricciardo and get past him – unfortunately, we got into the DRS of Magnussen, so couldn’t make a move. But looking at the positives, it is our fourth race in the points – Monaco, Canada, Barcelona and here – very different tracks, but we seem to be finding that consistency, which is important.
“And, we have got to keep that momentum going. We know we have some upgrades coming later on in the year. So I’m just pleased with the small steps forward we’re making,” summed up Gasly.
Here’s how F1 Austrian GP panned out
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