Esteban Ocon disputes Fernando Alonso’s controversial reputation for “breaking teammates”
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Fernando and Esteban
Esteban Ocon the Alpine Formula1 driver has recently shed light on what it’s like to work alongside the 2-time Formula1 world champion Fernando Alonso.
It has been stated in planetf1 that Esteban Ocon does not agree with the remarks that he heard about Fernando Alonso before his come-back season in 2021. During the 2021 Formula1 season their partnership was there for everyone to see as they did their best to support each other during the whole 2021 season.
Before Fernando’s comeback in 2021, he had a reputation for breaking people as during 2007 he had a tough time with Lewis Hamilton and Stoffel Vandoorne has previously blamed Fernando Alonso for his short career in Formula1.
However, in Esteban Ocon’s view, Fernando Alonso proved to be the opposite of what people had told him before he arrived at the Alpine Formula1 team in 2021.
Ocon said, “A lot of people said Fernando was very difficult to work with, that he had a reputation for breaking team-mates and all that.”
“I wanted to see it from my eyes, I wanted to see if what people were saying was true and in the end, it wasn’t. We’ve just had a fantastic collaboration altogether.”
Esteban Ocon on the skill of Fernando Alonso as a driver
“He’s a hell of a racer – he’s extremely fast, for sure the fastest team-mate I’ve had for a while. I was very happy to work alongside him.”
Ocon further added “I’ve learned a lot alongside him,” Ocon continued, “just the way Fernando thinks out of the box, where some other drivers would not think about or even the team would not think about stuff. It’s pushing the limit to strategies or how we can optimize everything – in that regard I’ve definitely learned a lot.”
“Also racecraft, I think I’ve picked up quite a lot of things from him – looking at his first laps, which is something I’ve always been doing, always been following what he has been doing. And towards the end of the year, I was only gaining positions not losing any, and I was doing great first laps.”
“It is a privilege to be working alongside a legend like him and I put him as a reference for sure at the beginning of the year.”
“I was happy to see that I was matching him in terms of pace and we were pushing each other and at the end that gave the team the maximum we could have, basically, and were extracting the maximum out of the package most of the time, so that was good.”
The duo had a tremendous 2021 season as they helped the Alpine team in finishing P5 ahead of the Alpha Tauri. During the 2021 season, Fernando scored a total of 81 points whereas Ocon scored 74.
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Rishabh Negi
(3244 Articles Published)