Alpine teammates Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly relive the moment when their ‘friendship went downward’ due to an illegal overtaking maneuver

The Alpine teammates have bad blood between them since karting days.

Alpine teammates Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly relive the moment when their ‘friendship went downward’ due to an illegal overtaking maneuver

Esteban Ocon & Pierre Gasly. Image via The Mirror.

It is quite well-known in the paddock that Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly do not have a cordial relationship between them. Recently, in the Netflic infamous Drive to Survive series, the french duo have explained the reason for the sour taste left in their mouth since their early karting days.

The Alpine duo come from the Normandy region in France. Both the drivers got their debut a fair way back in F1. Ocon got his taste of F1 machinery in 2016 while, Gasly got his first chance in 2017. The duo in their early days were close friends and travelled together for races. This soon changed and the reason was shared by the driver pair.

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Gasly shared his perspective of the reason for their savoured relationship as reported by express.co.uk:

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I had a fantastic race that day and on the last lap, I am fourth, Esteban is third. Both side-by-side to the line, and then I just like passed him, just literally in the last corner. The friendship we had… it just went downward from there.

Meanwhile, Ocon shared his side of the story:

It is true, this is what he did. Overtake on the last lap, but I can tell you that he wasn't racing the way that he should have done.

The French duo at their peak of rivalry removed each other from their photos. However, when the 28-year-old joined the team, a calm sort of demeaner was felt in the team and the civil war between the drivers had paused. Nonetheless, the drivers have a better relationship now but only act like colleagues not friends like their earlier days.

Pierre Gasly explained that he tried to save his relationship with Esteban Ocon

Gasly and Ocon were childhood friends and as usual a friendship doesn’t end due to a single fight. This was the attitude of the 28-year-old Gasly about his fight with his compatriot. However, this friendship to this day is still fringed and Gasly explained that he made several attempts but was unsuccessful.

Alpine drivers Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly (Image credit: F1)

I know I have given Esteban[Ocon] many chances to make this relationship work, but if someone doesn’t want to be friends then that’s fine to me.

Pierre Gasly said in the Drive to Survive Season 6 (H&T:express.co.uk)

The Frenchman stated that he made several attempts to save his friendship with Ocon but was unable to. Later, Gasly decided that if Ocon doesn’t want to save this friendship even after his tries, he will let it end.

On the other hand, keeping aside their differences, the Alpine duo is preparing for the season opener in Bahrain next week. Both the drivers have worked on themselves during the off-season and are ready to take on the show.

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