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ALEX KALINAUCKAS
WHY IT’S WRONG TO WRITE-OFF ESTEBAN OCON
It was one of those endless moments that precedes catastrophe.
Esteban Ocon’s Alpine A524 sent skywards, its left-rear having thumped the right-front of team-mate Pierre Gasly. In the gaudy opulence of Monaco’s Larvotto district, the resulting crash to earth was to be just as jarringly costly.
Ocon had been under strict instructions not only to not attack the lead Alpine car, but help it – Gasly started 10th and was essentially nailed on for his first point of 2024 given Monaco’s overtaking void. The botched pass put Ocon out of the race, his rear suspension destroyed, and incensed Alpine team principal Bruno Famin.
The now one-year team boss has an oft-incomprehensible approach to communication with the media. But he vowed drastic action. Eight days later, Ocon’s upcoming exit from the team he’d joined in 2020 as Renault, the squad for which he’d scored that famous victory in Hungary in 2021, was announced.
The split had seemingly been a while in the making. The A524 is a colourless disaster. Ocon’s over-celebrating getting it out of Q1 in Australia and Japan hadn’t gone down well within Alpine. Then there was that aggressive early racing with Gasly in Miami, where points were on for a team where this is rarely guaranteed in 2024. It evoked memories of his clashes with team-mate Fernando Alonso, which reached an ugly blue-on-blue head at Interlagos in 2022, before Ocon’s illustrious rival abandoned Alpine to join Aston.
At the time of writing, Ocon still has F1 options for 2025 and beyond. Haas is his most likely destination, but he could be an option for Audi/Sauber. That’s assuming his latest internecine contact hasn’t put off what will be another manufacturer marque obsessed with corporate compliance, one likely to baulk at the idea of its 2026 cars hitting each other à la Ocon and Sergio Pérez at Force India, repeatedly.
Wherever Ocon ends up, he’s long lost the career trajectory of a future champion. But signing elsewhere in F1’s lower midfield would at least keep his story alive. And it’s one that is truly compelling.
Ocon is one of a handful of modern F1 drivers to make it to the top level from very humble origins – his family sold their house to fund his karting career.
