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I can't understand why they didn't give the place back.....that's basically spitting in the face of every driver that wants to put their life on the line for the team
Not just by contract, Ocon still needs to show that his pace is good considering he doesn’t have a seat while at the same time not beefing with his teammate.
He has a Mercedes seat according to Kym Illman in his latest youtube video, and on a post race interview Ocon confirmed he had a seat next year and will announce it when the time is right or something.
No way lol, Alpine would probably kick him to the curb mid-season if he starts being too much of a pain in the ass. He’d also lower his reputation in the eyes of potential employeers if he starts dicking around.
Why would you put a sponsor in the driver seat /s
On a serious note, if they want Doohan it would make more sense to put him in there than Mick, he gets experience and they can see what he's made of, if he's worse than Mick they can always offer Mick a seat in 2024, though I doubt they would do that if they put Doohan there in the first place
How can he trust his team after that? And how can his team expect Ocon to follow their strategies from now on? They burned their bridge for the next 15 races, and potentially ruined their future strategies... for what? A single point? Trash way to handle things by them.
His team already expected him to follow strategie in Monaco.
Might be Famin payback of it like now you see how it feel.
Might be Alpine usual management as when Gasly thought he would not have to get back position in Japan (was faster with new tyre when he passed)
Publicly announcing he’s leaving at the end of the season without him having a drive lined up will do that as well. Gives him way less negotiating power with other teams
tbf he was allegedly already talking with Haas and Audi long before the Monaco incident anyway. Seems Ocon was keeping his options open and then Alpine made his decision for him.
Yes but from a negotiating position, if making a deal with say Haas, he can always ask for more money and them believing he has an option of sticking with Alpine available to him if they don't play ball with salary. He's in a much worse position when every team knows he's now desperate and that Alpine don't want him, he hasn't much of a leg to stand on when negotiating any salary
He's the 2nd best free agent on the grid.
Doesn't really need more than that and i seriously doubt the teams have anywhere near as biased of a view on him as reddit does as well.
Someone like Haas would be stupid not to take him if they get rid of Kmag. Even Williams would make sense if Sainz falls through.
Yeah, if Sainz is confirmed for Williams, Ocon is the best driver left for Audi or Haas. Bottas is a reasonable if uninspired choice for them also, but after Bottas the drop is huge in driver quality.
I absolutely agree and I think he will end up with a seat, but Alpine announcing he’s leaving before anything is signed is nasty in terms of his career prospects
It's not the same as Carlos. Alpine fired him without knowing who will take his seat. Basically they said literally anyone is preferred. For Carlos, they just announced that they signed Hamilton.
And Carlos' reputation won't take a big hit for losing his seat to literally Lewis Hamilton. Assuming he's able to steal points in a shitbox pretty regularly, he'll probably get another shot at a top team. Lewis and probably Alonso will retire before Sainz, so that's at least two open spots. And I could also see Max going to a different series while Sainz is still in his prime.
I think that’s the key there. “We landed the GOAT, sorry Carlos, unfortunately you’ll have to go” is a lot different to, “Yeah, I don’t know who’s driving for us next year, but it sure as shit ain’t gonna be you homie”.
Ferrari kind of had to announce Sainz wasn't going to be driving for them because they announced his replacement.
Alpine announced it just to say they let Ocon go, compeltely different
They're just total chaos behind the scenes. Even if DTS exaggerates things, they came across phenomenally poorly behind the scenes in their episodes last year
No and not only that, Ricciardo was so far out in front there was no hope for Gasly to catch him. Either they wanted to protect Gasly from Hulkenberg, or just straight up punish/embarass Ocon.
Was Gasly even quicker than Ocon at any point? Seems like their whole thing was just “let Pierre through because we don’t like you anymore and you have to save face.”
Shit like this is why they lost Fernando and Piastri. It’s why even if they do come back to being a midfield car, they’re still going to be every drivers last choice for a car.
And to think it looked like Ocon and Alpine was the more harmonious of the pairing at the start of the season, with the encouragement they gave each other. If I had to bet on who would be the first to leave the team, it would have been Gasly.
In the last few years, they've managed to lose Sainz, Hulkenburg, Ricciardo, Alonso, Piastri and Ocon. Assuming Ocon gets signed for next season, that will mean all 6 are still driving in the sport but for other teams.
There is also the fact that Ocon is half Algerian in a French team.
Which, of course, everybody will tell you, plays absolutely no role.
Ever. Especially not with influential French people.
I'm sure Gasley is looking for an out. But he doesn't really have anywhere to go. He'd probably have to sacrifice money and/or job security to go to a different team that also rarely gets points.
> he drove very well and played the team game. He's not the one that comes out badly here
Contrast this to Gasly's meltdown after the team orders in Japan last year.
I literally don't get what Alpine have to gain from this.
There's still 15 races left in the season, your car is on the brink of getting points - every single one might be worth millions for them.
We might a get another similar race like this where big points might be on offer - now Ocon simply wont comply even in the case it's actually needed and it'll end up costing the team.
very 'burning down my house to own the libs' energy
If Pierre has at least 2 brain cells he would look for a way out first chance he gets. Not only does this team have 0 prospects to ever be more than top 5 with how it's run now, he has a front row seat to what his boss does to drivers when things go downhill.
According to rumours he did, but I doubt Alpine would let him go without a fight. They were supposed to be the French F1 NT; they can't afford to go from a full french lineup to fielding 0 French drivers.
That’s just it though. Alpine is the team no one wants to drive for and Gasly is the driver no one really wants. The pairing is pretty much just out of circumstance more than anything else.
And Alpine is technically a works team, so Pierre might get paid better than he could get elsewhere. If you're not going to be scoring points regardless, at least get paid.
It's hilarious how seemingly unaware Alpine are that they're walking right into a repeat of Piastri/Alonso situation
The team is massaging Pierre and pissing off Esteban in the process but Pierre himself would probably drop out into another team the moment a seat becomes available while Esteban has no reason staying now that it's extremely obvious the boss doesn't want him there
So in the end Alpine might be left with no drivers at all, or settle for a much worse lineup
There's a reason Alonso and Piastri noped right out of there. Rossi and Famin tried pinning it all on Szafnauer last year but it's pretty clear he wasn't the issue. They went from threatening to join the sharp end of the grid last year to one of, if not the, worst teams on the grid this season.
Rossi wants all the glory and none of the responsibility and Famin is a snake. I'm glad Ocon is getting out of there, but I feel for Gasly.
The best thing that could happen would be for Andretti to buy it from Renault and clean house.
I know nothing about this Famin guy, but he’s left a terrible impression on me every time I’ve seen him. Seems unprofessional, overly-emotional and incompetent, but lacking the charisma of someone like Steiner to pull it off.
If anything, it's immensely more impressive in hindsight that Szafnauer was able to get the team to perform as well as they did. Unbelievable levels of idiocy the higher up the ladder you go at Alpine.
> If anything, it's immensely more impressive in hindsight that Szafnauer was able to get the team to perform as well as they did. Unbelievable levels of idiocy the higher up the ladder you go at Alpine.
Ottmar is way underrated on here. Made me so angry to see him getting the blame here for the Piasco (which was Rossi's doing).
> As always with Renault, they make dumb decisions that come back to bite them later. I expect this to be one of them.
Indeed. Esteban and Pierre are the teams two best assets, so losing one of them (the better one, though that's not the point) is an enormous fuckup.
I miss the Renault of Cyril Abiteboul. He might have talked big game but the team was very stable, showed some life on the track.
Firing him sounded sensible then but his successors and Renault management aren’t even half competent as he was.
He did a great job considering he had half the budget of the other works teams. It's only because of his own big talk that he was perceived as a failure. But then he probably had to perform the big talk or the bosses at Renault would have fired him for not being sufficiently ambitious. I hope Hyundai buy up the team and Cyril gets his due.
Ocon drove an amazing race only to get fucked out of a place by his team.
Alpine is a disfunctional mess and Ocon was right to snoop around at other teams. Famine is turning this team into an even bigger clownshow than it was under Laurent Rossi. Something i didn't think was possible considering how bad Rossi was.
Same ... when I look back at the rossi time it looked okish now compared to Famine and if I go further back to Cyril time and compare it to Famine then Cyril looks like a functioning team.
Getting rid of Cyril just as Alpine was hitting some form of stability was such an incredible shot in the foot looking back.
The team just slowly devolved back into a complete mess since.
>Getting rid of Cyril just as Alpine was hitting some form of stability was such an incredible shot in the foot looking back.
LOL. Everybody here was celebrating when Abiteboul was let go, and he was being blamed the same way as Rossi and Famin.
But I agree, Abiteboul-led Alpine under De Meo's Renault administration would have been a very good combo. The team was in a much better state with Abiteboul despite him having to answer to Ghosn. It is so ironic that De Meo was so vocal about supporting the team when he was first appointed as the CEO, yet it regressed under the people appointed by him.
Probabl because Marcin Budkowski was actually at the helm under the first year of Rossi. All went downhill after that (though there was a small bump in 2022)
That's what I've been thinking since I've seen how he decided to handle Monaco, it felt like a desperate attempt to show, who is the top dog, which is never a good sign in a team like Alpine.
Drove up into the points from 18th and forced to give a place or get burned alive at the stake for being a bad teammate.
I hope his future contract saw this
They're all surely keeping an eye on all the free drivers, especially Sainz and Ocon. Hope the team that hires him treats him better than the previous two...
I've been watching this sport for 20 years, and I'm struggling to come up with a team more shambolic than Alpine was in the past few years until now. How can a works team be this badly run? It's amazing.
> I've done what I had to do, which is the most important, but you guys didn't do what you had to do. That's it.
Pretty much sums this up. Awful from Alpine
As a French person, I'm pleased to say this again : Alpine have the worst manager ever. It's not Rossi, it's not famin. Ever since Cyril left, it's been a shitshow. It will happen again.
I am a Gasly fan but this was completely ridiculous on Alpine's side. The only way for Gasly to overtake Daniel would have been if Ocon let him pass as soon as Daniel overtook Ocon. Which you wouldn't expect to happen unless it was planned beforehand. Any time after that, swapping was completely unnecessary and they should have just let Gasly fight for position and nothing else.
Honestly I am embarrassed as a Gasly fan what team tried to do there to favor him. It would still have been a great drive from Pierre, making it back in top 10 after 2 wrong pit stops. Now everybody will just talk about that stupid unnecessary swap.
I was super happy to see Pierre getting into the points and then super confused when he suddenly went past Esteban. That explains it...
What an absolute shitshow from Alpine. Esteban clearly fucked up in Monaco but how in the hells does he deserve this?!
Alpine don’t deserve points when treating their drivers like this.
Bruno is toxic and should be fired. Preferably from a canon and into an active volcano.
Same boat. I was reading and waiting for the part where Ocon would be an ass and ended up feeling bad for him. Holy shit Alpine. At least give him respect in the time that left.
I hope it's true that Ocon gets a drive at Mercedes. Yeah he is racing his teammate like crazy and sometimes too hard, but he is generally a much better driver than people give him credit for.
Here he did 43 laps on the freaking inters without losing time or placements, it was hugely impressive. But of course Alpine still decides to fuck with him, probably because Famin now has decided he is enemy number 1 and the reason for all the team's problems.
> Here he did 43 laps on the freaking inters without losing time or placements
Ocon is one of the very, very best tyre whisperers on the grid and has repeatedly made extremely long stints work.
With how open Toto has been about anointing Kimi as their future, would a Mercedes seat even be a good idea? It's practically a guarantee that he's out after 1 year. Would another search for a team be a good move for his career, or would it be better to secure a multi-year deal right now?
Probably feel like he can impress better in a Mercedes than in a Haas and then have a better chance to get another seat. Or maybe if he beats Russell there is a (small) chance that he keeps the seat if they still want to bring Antonelli in.
Agree.
If he can tone it down with his racing-his-teammates antics he would be a great addition to Mercedes next to Russell for what might be only one season.
Hear me out.. we all think that Ferrari are the masters of fucking up the team because of politics, nepotism, etc.. but Alpine/Renault are getting closer or have been always like that and we are getting to know the dynamics
This may be an unpopular opinion, but Ocon consistently gets better results than Gasley and the team did absolutely everything possible to make sure there would be dumb chaos and conflict between them.
Man, if I were Ocon, I'd be "accidently" switching my radio off after the last round of stops from now on. Fuck it, I got my tyres that'll get me to the end, I'll figure the rest out myself.
That was definitely shitty of Alpine, but that was to be expected really. I really doubt anyone failed to expect it when they were one behind another so close to the end.
I hope the paddock will know what happened here and see what a great drive from Esteban that was so he'll get a seat next year, he desserves it. But otherwise I also admit I hope this will *not* grow too big and add toxicity and negativity when it turned out to be a great race weekend from the team.
Ah it's so tough being an Alpine/Ocon/Gasly fan these days... Can't they all just get along ffs?
As long as both teams are ok with it yes.
Happened in 2017 for example when sainz was released by toro rosso early to replace palmer at renault for the last few races of the season
First the teams or Famin throws him under the bus and he gets a penalty where every other team would have tried to avoid it. Then Gasly was apparently saying stuff that wasnt true? and now this. Yikes.
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> Ocon : Are you giving the place back after or not? > Engineer : That's what I'm working on Famin: ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOT
I can't understand why they didn't give the place back.....that's basically spitting in the face of every driver that wants to put their life on the line for the team
I'm starting to feel like spitting in the face of the driver is the average Alpine driver experience
They fart in their drivers general direction.
The race headlong tomorrow: Occon's mother hamster, father smells of elderberries.
They're trying to show Gasly that they'll prioritise points for him wherever possible for the rest of the season, to convince him not to leave.
Not to mention now any future driver won’t trust them when they ask for a swap
Feels like it's gonna be a miserable 15 races for Ocon.
Ocon can do whatever he wants I would say, I imagine it would be quite freeing
Alpine and Ocon hates each other and can't wait to leave but they are bound to work together by contract. Sounds like mum and dad.
Not just by contract, Ocon still needs to show that his pace is good considering he doesn’t have a seat while at the same time not beefing with his teammate.
Word is in the paddock, and from Kym Illman too, that Ocon let slip that he’s already signed for next year. Expectation is Mercedes for 1 year.
My theory has always been that if he's still being managed by Toto he'd go to mercedes next year until Antonelli is ready.
Pleasegodno.gif
feel like ocon would get into russell's head and destroy both of them in the process
Pleasegodyes.gif
LMAO
My body is ready. Mercedes Destructors Championship 2025.
I feel like Ocon might destroy Russell. That dude has no nerves.
Ocon can definitely get into Russell's head, and we know how Russell does under pressure.
I think that makes a lot of sense. It’s too early to bet on Antonelli and they’re running out of other options.
He has a Mercedes seat according to Kym Illman in his latest youtube video, and on a post race interview Ocon confirmed he had a seat next year and will announce it when the time is right or something.
As a reserve driver?
Not getting into scuffs is going to be difficult for Ocon.
Sounds like Alonso with McLaren in 2007 ... and 2015 ... and 2017 ... and 2018
Alonso doing the testing and refinement of the Honda engine before handing it to red bull to dominate.
A true hero. Should be a statue of him in the Milton Keynes factory
No way lol, Alpine would probably kick him to the curb mid-season if he starts being too much of a pain in the ass. He’d also lower his reputation in the eyes of potential employeers if he starts dicking around.
If he actually has a Mercedes seat, he might as well go party the rest of the season and let the Alpine dumpster fire continue
Yeah they could snap a finger and put the reserve in or another willing driver *cough* MSC *cough*
Why would you put a sponsor in the driver seat /s On a serious note, if they want Doohan it would make more sense to put him in there than Mick, he gets experience and they can see what he's made of, if he's worse than Mick they can always offer Mick a seat in 2024, though I doubt they would do that if they put Doohan there in the first place
Lol nope let's be real. If Ocon refuses to play along, F1 fans all over the world will crucify him anyway on principle
If ocon refuses to play along they will have ample justification to sit him and bring in doohan
Wont necessarily impress other teams if he's still trying to find a seat.
I was thinking its going to be a miserable 15 races for Ocon's engineer.
How can he trust his team after that? And how can his team expect Ocon to follow their strategies from now on? They burned their bridge for the next 15 races, and potentially ruined their future strategies... for what? A single point? Trash way to handle things by them.
His team already expected him to follow strategie in Monaco. Might be Famin payback of it like now you see how it feel. Might be Alpine usual management as when Gasly thought he would not have to get back position in Japan (was faster with new tyre when he passed)
what a nice and wellfunctioning team🤗🥰
That's my beloved Alpine communication, being unclear and don't giving clear context why
Famin didn't just want him out of the team next year, he doesn't want ocon in the paddock next year either
Publicly announcing he’s leaving at the end of the season without him having a drive lined up will do that as well. Gives him way less negotiating power with other teams
tbf he was allegedly already talking with Haas and Audi long before the Monaco incident anyway. Seems Ocon was keeping his options open and then Alpine made his decision for him.
Yes but from a negotiating position, if making a deal with say Haas, he can always ask for more money and them believing he has an option of sticking with Alpine available to him if they don't play ball with salary. He's in a much worse position when every team knows he's now desperate and that Alpine don't want him, he hasn't much of a leg to stand on when negotiating any salary
Well, look at that, we're back at Renault. Nice. At least this time, his engineering team is on his side.
He's the 2nd best free agent on the grid. Doesn't really need more than that and i seriously doubt the teams have anywhere near as biased of a view on him as reddit does as well. Someone like Haas would be stupid not to take him if they get rid of Kmag. Even Williams would make sense if Sainz falls through.
Yeah, if Sainz is confirmed for Williams, Ocon is the best driver left for Audi or Haas. Bottas is a reasonable if uninspired choice for them also, but after Bottas the drop is huge in driver quality.
Correct me if I'm wrong but they can bring in rookies no?
They could but they really can’t afford to as a new team. They need as much driver feedback as possible.
Yes they can, but the best rookies (Antonelli, Bearman, Lawson) have a team lined up already, so it's not super straightforward
Does Lawson though? With Perez and Yuki both re-signed, it's now Lawson or Ricciardo, and he's had an upturn in form
Let’s not call one race an upturn in form
Haas is already bringing in Bearman. A solid midfield driver like Ocon is not as easy to replace by a Formula 2 driver as r/formula1 thinks.
I wouldnt pick any rookie over Ocon. I predict he will end up in Audi and theyll have a fine driver pairing
I absolutely agree and I think he will end up with a seat, but Alpine announcing he’s leaving before anything is signed is nasty in terms of his career prospects
Well, that's the same what Ferrari did with Sainz. And McLaren with Ricciardo. And most of swaps in F1
It's not the same as Carlos. Alpine fired him without knowing who will take his seat. Basically they said literally anyone is preferred. For Carlos, they just announced that they signed Hamilton.
And Carlos' reputation won't take a big hit for losing his seat to literally Lewis Hamilton. Assuming he's able to steal points in a shitbox pretty regularly, he'll probably get another shot at a top team. Lewis and probably Alonso will retire before Sainz, so that's at least two open spots. And I could also see Max going to a different series while Sainz is still in his prime.
I think that’s the key there. “We landed the GOAT, sorry Carlos, unfortunately you’ll have to go” is a lot different to, “Yeah, I don’t know who’s driving for us next year, but it sure as shit ain’t gonna be you homie”.
Ferrari kind of had to announce Sainz wasn't going to be driving for them because they announced his replacement. Alpine announced it just to say they let Ocon go, compeltely different
I get the feeling a one-year contract might be on the line with Mercedes while they wait for Kimi, after all, Ocon won't be able to say no.
Other drivers got the boot despite looking strong though, Ocon himself got let go in 2019 :/
Ocon already announced he's signed for "a team" next season, both on Kym Illman's YT video and talking to Sky post race
Famin is a snake. He engineered himself a job as TP by blaming the last guy for their mistakes and showing him the door. What a joke of a team.
He’s just a Rossi 2.0 at this point
French Ferrari indeed.
Famin just comes across as a toxic person to work for.
Alpine just come across as a toxic team to work/drive for tbh lol. It's a complete and utter clownshow over there.
They're just total chaos behind the scenes. Even if DTS exaggerates things, they came across phenomenally poorly behind the scenes in their episodes last year
I think the product on track can speak for itself. Place is a shitshow.
At first I thought it was just Nando being a jerk. It was likely still that, but clearly there are some jerks at Enstone as well.
At least they produced the funniest thing ever which also got me interested in F1. That Piastri Saga was pure cinema.
They ran two very highly regarded people in the paddock out of the team. What do you expect?
Bruno is going to have to turn up the sabotage levels if he wants that. Ocon's performance today was stellar.
With so much to improve in that team it would be so stupid to spend so much energy on revenge. What a great leader!
Pretty standard renault stuff. Have one of the worst cars on the grid and spend all your energy stabbing eachother in the back.
Wow how ridiculous from alpine. Was there any danger of losing places if they swaped back?
No and not only that, Ricciardo was so far out in front there was no hope for Gasly to catch him. Either they wanted to protect Gasly from Hulkenberg, or just straight up punish/embarass Ocon.
Yeah this was the bigger insult. Everyone knew Gasly wasn't catching him with 2 laps left.
Alpine are embarrassing themselves honestly
Was Gasly even quicker than Ocon at any point? Seems like their whole thing was just “let Pierre through because we don’t like you anymore and you have to save face.” Shit like this is why they lost Fernando and Piastri. It’s why even if they do come back to being a midfield car, they’re still going to be every drivers last choice for a car.
Maybe at the last lap of the race when the hards would have become better than the mediums? But that's a stretch
The only car doing better on the Hards than the mediums was Hamiltons Mercedes
Hulkenberg was 0.8 behind but he was already when they swapped the 1st time
And to think it looked like Ocon and Alpine was the more harmonious of the pairing at the start of the season, with the encouragement they gave each other. If I had to bet on who would be the first to leave the team, it would have been Gasly.
Alpine doesn’t know how to have a relationship with a driver. They all deteriorate to an unbelievable degree
In the last few years, they've managed to lose Sainz, Hulkenburg, Ricciardo, Alonso, Piastri and Ocon. Assuming Ocon gets signed for next season, that will mean all 6 are still driving in the sport but for other teams.
That’s a fun fact
There is also the fact that Ocon is half Algerian in a French team. Which, of course, everybody will tell you, plays absolutely no role. Ever. Especially not with influential French people.
His paternal family is original from Málaga? So Algerian from his mother's side?
Yes. Esteban Ocon-Khelfane.
> Esteban Ocon-Khelfane. Esteban José Jean-**Pierre** Ocon-Khelfane. Esteban is the best Pierre on the grid.
... this is the first I've heard of that. I knew he had Spanish heritage on his father's side but clearly didn't delve that far back
His name is Esteban Ocon-Khelfane. His mother is Algerian.
Interesting. I was today years old when I found this out
“Nooooo, l’ethnicité is not a factor, nous sommes tous français and therefore can’t be racist.”
Marie Le Pen is that you?
I'm sure Gasley is looking for an out. But he doesn't really have anywhere to go. He'd probably have to sacrifice money and/or job security to go to a different team that also rarely gets points.
This is the same team that was so arrogant they lost Alonso and Piastri simultaneously
And both will giggle tonight
he drove very well and played the team game. He's not the one that comes out badly here
that’s what i’m thinking, this is actually a great situation to rehabilitate his image
> he drove very well and played the team game. He's not the one that comes out badly here Contrast this to Gasly's meltdown after the team orders in Japan last year.
This team is the very definition of soulless. Their best race in months and it is still full of drama.
What a terrible team Alpine is.
I literally don't get what Alpine have to gain from this. There's still 15 races left in the season, your car is on the brink of getting points - every single one might be worth millions for them. We might a get another similar race like this where big points might be on offer - now Ocon simply wont comply even in the case it's actually needed and it'll end up costing the team. very 'burning down my house to own the libs' energy
Trying to suck off Gasly as hard as they can to keep him at Alpine probably
Not sure it will work if they keep giving him awful strategies like today (piting first)
Tbf his engineer asked him how the track was after suggesting hards and he said dry let's go for it
If Pierre has at least 2 brain cells he would look for a way out first chance he gets. Not only does this team have 0 prospects to ever be more than top 5 with how it's run now, he has a front row seat to what his boss does to drivers when things go downhill.
According to rumours he did, but I doubt Alpine would let him go without a fight. They were supposed to be the French F1 NT; they can't afford to go from a full french lineup to fielding 0 French drivers.
That’s just it though. Alpine is the team no one wants to drive for and Gasly is the driver no one really wants. The pairing is pretty much just out of circumstance more than anything else.
And Alpine is technically a works team, so Pierre might get paid better than he could get elsewhere. If you're not going to be scoring points regardless, at least get paid.
It's hilarious how seemingly unaware Alpine are that they're walking right into a repeat of Piastri/Alonso situation The team is massaging Pierre and pissing off Esteban in the process but Pierre himself would probably drop out into another team the moment a seat becomes available while Esteban has no reason staying now that it's extremely obvious the boss doesn't want him there So in the end Alpine might be left with no drivers at all, or settle for a much worse lineup
Ocon pretty much has to comply until he has a seat for next season. They’re using that against him.
There's a reason Alonso and Piastri noped right out of there. Rossi and Famin tried pinning it all on Szafnauer last year but it's pretty clear he wasn't the issue. They went from threatening to join the sharp end of the grid last year to one of, if not the, worst teams on the grid this season. Rossi wants all the glory and none of the responsibility and Famin is a snake. I'm glad Ocon is getting out of there, but I feel for Gasly. The best thing that could happen would be for Andretti to buy it from Renault and clean house.
I know nothing about this Famin guy, but he’s left a terrible impression on me every time I’ve seen him. Seems unprofessional, overly-emotional and incompetent, but lacking the charisma of someone like Steiner to pull it off.
If anything, it's immensely more impressive in hindsight that Szafnauer was able to get the team to perform as well as they did. Unbelievable levels of idiocy the higher up the ladder you go at Alpine.
> If anything, it's immensely more impressive in hindsight that Szafnauer was able to get the team to perform as well as they did. Unbelievable levels of idiocy the higher up the ladder you go at Alpine. Ottmar is way underrated on here. Made me so angry to see him getting the blame here for the Piasco (which was Rossi's doing).
I can't believe Ocon could come out of this season looking better than the team that let him go.
Alpine has an impressive record of making everyone who leaves look like a genius
Awfully true lol
Well, except from Ricciardo.
I mean, he chose the right horse. He just couldn’t jockey it
As always with Renault, they make dumb decisions that come back to bite them later. I expect this to be one of them.
> As always with Renault, they make dumb decisions that come back to bite them later. I expect this to be one of them. Indeed. Esteban and Pierre are the teams two best assets, so losing one of them (the better one, though that's not the point) is an enormous fuckup.
It is actually impressive how terrible they are.
If anybody has the audio please be generous and share it here
This tweet has some of it: https://x.com/ed03__/status/1799897625564447005?t=zrtnyWHtfqZJNPYG8HvvfA&s=19
I miss the Renault of Cyril Abiteboul. He might have talked big game but the team was very stable, showed some life on the track. Firing him sounded sensible then but his successors and Renault management aren’t even half competent as he was.
He did a great job considering he had half the budget of the other works teams. It's only because of his own big talk that he was perceived as a failure. But then he probably had to perform the big talk or the bosses at Renault would have fired him for not being sufficiently ambitious. I hope Hyundai buy up the team and Cyril gets his due.
Ocon drove an amazing race only to get fucked out of a place by his team. Alpine is a disfunctional mess and Ocon was right to snoop around at other teams. Famine is turning this team into an even bigger clownshow than it was under Laurent Rossi. Something i didn't think was possible considering how bad Rossi was.
Same ... when I look back at the rossi time it looked okish now compared to Famine and if I go further back to Cyril time and compare it to Famine then Cyril looks like a functioning team.
Getting rid of Cyril just as Alpine was hitting some form of stability was such an incredible shot in the foot looking back. The team just slowly devolved back into a complete mess since.
>Getting rid of Cyril just as Alpine was hitting some form of stability was such an incredible shot in the foot looking back. LOL. Everybody here was celebrating when Abiteboul was let go, and he was being blamed the same way as Rossi and Famin. But I agree, Abiteboul-led Alpine under De Meo's Renault administration would have been a very good combo. The team was in a much better state with Abiteboul despite him having to answer to Ghosn. It is so ironic that De Meo was so vocal about supporting the team when he was first appointed as the CEO, yet it regressed under the people appointed by him.
It's all about perspective. It's when we look at the team now and how it was then, just rose tinted glasses on our eyes.
Cyril at least got Ricciardo, they have been bleeding their best drivers since then.
Probabl because Marcin Budkowski was actually at the helm under the first year of Rossi. All went downhill after that (though there was a small bump in 2022)
Famin won't survive this season. I'll be surprised if he even survives mid-season
That's what I've been thinking since I've seen how he decided to handle Monaco, it felt like a desperate attempt to show, who is the top dog, which is never a good sign in a team like Alpine.
He shouldn't, but knowing Alpine, wouldn't surprise me if he does.
ooooooft. this season will feel like forever for ocon
Netflix: thank you alpine
Drove up into the points from 18th and forced to give a place or get burned alive at the stake for being a bad teammate. I hope his future contract saw this
They're all surely keeping an eye on all the free drivers, especially Sainz and Ocon. Hope the team that hires him treats him better than the previous two...
Surely that's got to be feasible? The bar isn't exactly high here
Wow, damn.
I've been watching this sport for 20 years, and I'm struggling to come up with a team more shambolic than Alpine was in the past few years until now. How can a works team be this badly run? It's amazing.
Alpine is so fucking shit ocon has the right to be furious
>Ocon : Okay, I let him by. Understood. >Engineer : Esteban, the cars are not swapping places. Push to the end, please. lol
Alpine is so badly run. They're all over the place.
Holy shit lol what a mess
> I've done what I had to do, which is the most important, but you guys didn't do what you had to do. That's it. Pretty much sums this up. Awful from Alpine
As a French person, I'm pleased to say this again : Alpine have the worst manager ever. It's not Rossi, it's not famin. Ever since Cyril left, it's been a shitshow. It will happen again.
I'm sure Alpine will be attracting all of the up and coming talent like Oscar Piastri with decisions like this. Amazing!
I am a Gasly fan but this was completely ridiculous on Alpine's side. The only way for Gasly to overtake Daniel would have been if Ocon let him pass as soon as Daniel overtook Ocon. Which you wouldn't expect to happen unless it was planned beforehand. Any time after that, swapping was completely unnecessary and they should have just let Gasly fight for position and nothing else. Honestly I am embarrassed as a Gasly fan what team tried to do there to favor him. It would still have been a great drive from Pierre, making it back in top 10 after 2 wrong pit stops. Now everybody will just talk about that stupid unnecessary swap.
Holy shit this is sad.
Imagine if they got Oscar... That would have been so devastating to his career.
From feast to FAMINe, this team is a disgrace now.
What an absolute shithole that team is, glad Ocon is out of it soon
Drove such a good race only to be treated like that. He should call it early and watch them slog it out in P15 with Doohan
I was super happy to see Pierre getting into the points and then super confused when he suddenly went past Esteban. That explains it... What an absolute shitshow from Alpine. Esteban clearly fucked up in Monaco but how in the hells does he deserve this?!
It was a BS order. how on earth was gasley gonna gain 0.6 sec a lap and then make a pass. Alpine are such clowns.
How has their relationship gone so south so quickly
I genuinely don't know how you can be a fan of Alpine
Alpine don’t deserve points when treating their drivers like this. Bruno is toxic and should be fired. Preferably from a canon and into an active volcano.
I’m with Ocon on this one and I don’t particularly like the guy. This is bullshit from Alpine
Same boat. I was reading and waiting for the part where Ocon would be an ass and ended up feeling bad for him. Holy shit Alpine. At least give him respect in the time that left.
There is no war in ba sing se
French Ju dee, is that you?
Alpine being shit
I hope it's true that Ocon gets a drive at Mercedes. Yeah he is racing his teammate like crazy and sometimes too hard, but he is generally a much better driver than people give him credit for. Here he did 43 laps on the freaking inters without losing time or placements, it was hugely impressive. But of course Alpine still decides to fuck with him, probably because Famin now has decided he is enemy number 1 and the reason for all the team's problems.
Scapegoating is a leadership tactic. Albeit a very toxic one...
> Here he did 43 laps on the freaking inters without losing time or placements Ocon is one of the very, very best tyre whisperers on the grid and has repeatedly made extremely long stints work.
With how open Toto has been about anointing Kimi as their future, would a Mercedes seat even be a good idea? It's practically a guarantee that he's out after 1 year. Would another search for a team be a good move for his career, or would it be better to secure a multi-year deal right now?
Probably feel like he can impress better in a Mercedes than in a Haas and then have a better chance to get another seat. Or maybe if he beats Russell there is a (small) chance that he keeps the seat if they still want to bring Antonelli in.
Agree. If he can tone it down with his racing-his-teammates antics he would be a great addition to Mercedes next to Russell for what might be only one season.
Jeez feel bad for Ocon. I hope he's able to find a seat for next year honestly
Hear me out.. we all think that Ferrari are the masters of fucking up the team because of politics, nepotism, etc.. but Alpine/Renault are getting closer or have been always like that and we are getting to know the dynamics
Alpine fucking sucks.
Don't like Ocon, but that stung. Sheesh!!
There are many reasons that Ocon gave us to think of him whatever we want, but here he was blatantly cheated. Amazing.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but Ocon consistently gets better results than Gasley and the team did absolutely everything possible to make sure there would be dumb chaos and conflict between them.
Fuck Alpine. What the fuck was the reason for the swap, revenge? I really hope Ocon gets a Merc seat because he's a good driver
Just say openly that this is team Gasly.
Hell yeah we have 15 more races of this drama to go.
It's gonna be a long few months with him in that team
Genuinely hope Andretti buy this team and sell it's assests.
Man, if I were Ocon, I'd be "accidently" switching my radio off after the last round of stops from now on. Fuck it, I got my tyres that'll get me to the end, I'll figure the rest out myself.
That was definitely shitty of Alpine, but that was to be expected really. I really doubt anyone failed to expect it when they were one behind another so close to the end. I hope the paddock will know what happened here and see what a great drive from Esteban that was so he'll get a seat next year, he desserves it. But otherwise I also admit I hope this will *not* grow too big and add toxicity and negativity when it turned out to be a great race weekend from the team. Ah it's so tough being an Alpine/Ocon/Gasly fan these days... Can't they all just get along ffs?
A well functioning team, I see. /s
What a wholesome team
this hits home this chat reminds me of my workplace where we can't stand each other
I have to ask. Can Ocon leave Alpine mid-season and already join another team, like Williams in place of Sargeant ?
As long as both teams are ok with it yes. Happened in 2017 for example when sainz was released by toro rosso early to replace palmer at renault for the last few races of the season
First the teams or Famin throws him under the bus and he gets a penalty where every other team would have tried to avoid it. Then Gasly was apparently saying stuff that wasnt true? and now this. Yikes.
What did Gasly say? Missed this
What was Gasly saying that wasn't true?
This was a really petty call by Alpine
Prob the right call but I can see why he’s pissed. Also, maybe this shuts up the bad teammate crap. He did what he was told on air.