Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly talk about Luca de Meo’s speech post the F1 Japanese GP weekend and also the post-race team orders discussions.
For Alpine, the Japanese GP weekend saw the French outfit pick up three points where Gasly made way for Ocon to take ninth and 10th respectively. Although the results stood the same but this did lead to a few issues after the race.
Gasly was vocal on the radio about the switch where he argued he wasn’t told to switch back. He felt the different strategy situation wouldn’t lead to this as he chased Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso but couldn’t get to him in the end.
He was asked to give back to place which irked him where Ocon felt it was normal routine. Post-race, discussions were held at Enstone. While Gasly chose to remain silent on what was discussed, his teammate played on the general lines rather than going in-depth.
After Suzuka, Renault boss de Meo too paid a visit to Enstone, something that doesn’t happen too often. He gave a motivational speech which was praised by both Ocon and Gasly. Reportedly, Bruno Famin has been named a full-time team principal amid the wholesale changes that Alpine has made.
Luca de Meo speech to entire team –
Gasly: “Yeah, I was at the simulator on that day. And no, I think it was definitely very inspiring, keep to push the team forward and pushing for change and improvement. So no, I think it was very positive. And yeah, it was great to be there, all united as a team.”
Ocon: “Yeah, I was having performance meetings on that day and obviously, yes, I attended the speech of Luca and Luca came to reaffirm and motivate everyone inside the factory. It was good that obviously he visited us. He replied to a lot of questions as well from everyone. And, yes, of course, there’s things that we need to improve and we are on the way to be doing that and I’m sure that we are going to be able to achieve it in the future. I think it’s always a good thing to see your boss coming into the factory, stepping in the doors and just re-motivating or motivating everyone. I think it’s a great thing, showing that the plan with Formula 1 is completely within Alpine and that really shows how much he cares about the project. So it’s always the right time, there’s no bad or good times, it’s always the right time.”
Suzuka last lap team orders and talks –
Gasly: “Everything has been discussed and yeah, I’ll leave it there. As I said, everything has been discussed and I have no further comment on that.”
Ocon: “Yeah, we’ve discussed it internally, which is the most important and we know where we are going from now. But it’s been a similar thing a couple of years ago with Daniel, as I said, with Fernando. We’ve made those switches from one side or another and the important thing for us as a team is to maximise the result that we can get, and we try and do that in that race. Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to get one more position so we made the switch back. But now we know where we’re going with the team and that’s the most important.”
Gasly’s frustration –
Ocon: “I’m always on the side of… I prefer to race. It doesn’t matter what there is to gain in front; there shouldn’t be artificial racing in any way and I’m more of an old school guy on that one and I just prefer to race, doesn’t matter what the circumstance is, even if there is a podium to get in front. But I also understand the side of the team, which is to try and get as many points as we can which is normal. So you need to understand both.”
Here’s Alpine on current form
Here’s Lewis Hamilton, Esteban Ocon racing RC Cars
Here’s Alpine pair on team orders in Suzuka