Esteban Ocon: I am fully committed to the Alpine F1 project

Last fall, the Renault group’s management set a goal for its factory Alpine F1 team: to become a real contender for championship victory in 100 races and compete for the title. Esteban Ocon does not consider such a goal unattainable.

Esteban Ocon: “I think the Alpine F1 has what it takes to get the job done. If I didn’t believe in it, I wouldn’t be on this team. My goal is to be world champion someday, I’m not happy racing just to race it. It’s not interesting at all.

I wish there were more moments like last year when I was on the podium in Budapest. My partner, Fernando Alonso, also believes in our team – ask him. All our leaders, Otmar Szafnauer, Laurent Rossi and Luca de Meo, have the same attitude: they want us to make progress and become leaders. Not all teams can say this, so I’m fully committed to our project.

That’s why I signed a long-term contract with Alpine F1. When I first met Laurent Rossi, he immediately said that the team should strive to win the championship. I even asked him again: is he sure about this, because this is a very difficult task? And then we played squash with him, and I realized he’s a real winner by nature.

I saw then that he was willing to risk everything for the win. He is generally a good athlete and this competitive spirit is very strong in him.

I think my strength is that I know how to properly organize the work on the weekend: at the beginning of the training, no one tries to squeeze everything out of the car, you have to gradually increase the speed, the change in the condition of the track surface and give everything in the qualification.

If it really matters, I can drive close to obstacles. This approach has helped me in all years of my career: I usually manage to avoid mistakes in training, and as a result I come to qualifying at the peak of my form. This is one of my best features. It is especially useful on city circuits, as there are now more and more on the championship calendar.

Another one of my strengths is passing fast corners. It’s extremely rare that my teammates do it faster than me. I have good control of the car in such corners – unfortunately you don’t gain much time in it, this is a minus!

Esteban also shared his impressions of the collaboration with Fernando Alonso, who turned out to be completely different from what other people could have imagined: games and all, but that turned out not to be the case.

When we became partners, I thought, “Well, we’ll see! You have to make your own judgment.” Turns out we have a lot in common. And it’s not that I’m half Spanish! (laughs)

We both love racing more than anything. Fernando has already proved it by winning two Formula 1 titles, having achieved success in the most prestigious races (24 Hours of Le Mans), and now he is back in the championship and again giving his all on the track, and he is still as fast as before.

Our whole life is about racing. It may seem boring to some, but we’re not interested in much outside of motorsport. I should add that when we fight with him on track it never ends in accidents – this is a fundamental difference from that time, for example when my partner in Force India was Sergio Perez. We also competed with him, wheel to wheel, but sometimes we didn’t make it to the finish. This is not the case with Alonso.

At the same time, Fernando is a very funny guy, we often exchange jokes and I am very happy to have such a partner, it is a great honor to work with him.