Esteban Ocon secured a brilliant 3rd place finish at the Monaco Grand Prix, giving Alpine its best finish this season. Starting P3 on Sunday due to Charles Leclerc’s 3-place grid penalty, Ocon put in a stellar drive to finish on the podium. Despite heavy showers mid-race and damage to his front car, the Frenchman safely brought his Alpine home to secure his podium.
“I’m speechless, I’m on a cloud at the moment – I don’t know what to say!” said Ocon after his podium finish. He also said, “Before the weekend, if you told us that we were going to be in the top 10, we would have been happy, you know? But it’s not the top 10, it’s not the top 5, it’s a podium!”
However, the Alpine driver also believes that the upcoming Spanish Grand Prix would be a better circuit to evaluate the true potential of the car. “It’s a very different track in terms of characteristics here. But clearly, the car felt more alive,” he stated. “We need to keep our feet to the ground and see where we are next week. It’s going to be a good test,” the Alpine driver concluded after driving the upgraded A523 on the streets of Monaco.
Alpine’s updates to Monaco bring their best result of the season so far
After a rather impressive qualifying session by Esteban Ocon, many were rooting for Frenchie to bring a positive result for his team. Even though rain affected the race and could have potentially changed up the top order, Alpine and Ocon both kept their nerve and emerged as podium finishers at the end.
When asked about the upgrades made to the car, here is what Esteban Ocon had to say – “We did bring some updates. They were supposed to be quite small but everything we had goes in the right direction.” the 26-year-old continued. After team CEO Laurent Rossi openly criticized the French team, it made Alpine’s result in Monaco even more meaningful.
Along with heavy downpours, Esteban Ocon gained damage to his front wing after Ferrari Driver Carlos Sainz dive-bombed him earlier in the race. Battling all these problems, the French driver still gave Alpine their first rostrum since Qatar 2021.
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