Famen: There was no talk at all about Ocon’s removal

After the Monaco accident, Esteban Ocon became a hero, or rather an anti-hero, in the news, and when Alpine announced they would part ways at the end of the year, few were surprised.

In Montreal, Bruno Famen, head of the Renault works team, was asked whether the team’s decision had anything to do with the incident. Let’s not forget that on the first lap of the Monaco Grand Prix, Ocon rushed to attack his partner, Pierre Gasly, and it all ended in hard contact between the Alpine cars, forcing the perpetrator of the collision to leave the race left.

“I am much more interested in what lies ahead than what has happened in the past,” Famen replied. – If we talk about Esteban and Pierre, I have had conversations with them more than once. We had been negotiating for months, and I think it was pretty clear to Esteban that the cycle of working with him was coming to an end.

He will be racing for our team for the fifth year and will compete in the remaining 16 races of the season. I believe in his professionalism and have no doubt that we will work well in the end.”

At the first practice in Montreal, Ocon’s car was driven by Jack Douin, and Famen confirmed that the Australian Alpine reserve is among the likely contenders for a place in the team: “Jack is one of the candidates. We are preparing it. Not so long ago he completed tests in Spielberg and we have set up a fairly intensive program of further tests for him.

We are happy with how he is doing, so we will see how he develops. Although Jack is only one of the possible candidates, it is clear that he is in this number.”

After Monaco, there was talk that Duane or, for example, Mick Schumacher, who competes in endurance races for Alpine, could replace Ocon in Canada, as the team management decided to punish him by suspending him for one round.

However, Famen assures that this is not true: “This topic has never been discussed. We are all professionals. Even if some problems have occurred, we discuss them and decide what needs to be done to achieve improvements in the next race. But there was no discussion at all about suspending his work for a period of one race.”