Esteban Ocon has struggled to match the performance of his teammate Pierre Gasly since Alpine F1 brought the upgrades to its A524 in Austin. The French driver does not understand why he is lacking in performance and is worried about not finding a solution.
“A car, Pierre’s, was fast from Austin” Ocon said. “Unfortunately we are not fast since Austin and that could cost us in the championship. We need to understand what exactly is going on and we hope to improve the situation for the next two races.”
Ocon wonders about the intrinsic performance reasons coming from the car, which he cannot push at a similar pace to his teammate. However, he hopes to resolve the problem for the two races he has left with Alpine.
“We're working with the team to try to improve the situation. But yeah, I mean since Austin it seems like it's not working at all on our end and we need to make sure that's not the case anymore for the last two Grands Prix.”
Asked about the reasons which push his two drivers to display a different pace, the team director, Oliver Oakes, refutes any difference between his cars.
“He's a little behind Pierre from where he'd like to be,” Oakes said. “From our side, both cars are the same, both have been improved, but everyone must continue to look to make them more comfortable.”
“I think you can see that Esteban was strong in race pace. I think Pierre is a little stronger than him in qualifying, and I think that's where he is. We have to do in so that he is more comfortable.”
“Even this weekend, to be honest, he was a tenth away from Q3, and he had a really good race pace today. It's just a shame that we made things harder than they were. should not have been.”
