At the end of the season, Esteban Ocon’s collaboration with the Alpine team will end. The French driver will continue his career at Haas, while the Enstone team has yet to sign a new driver. Former Haas boss Gunther Steiner believes that Alpine will not be able to find a full-fledged replacement for Ocon.
“From what I understand, working with Esteban at Alpine became a constant headache, so at some point they decided that a painful separation was better than constant pain,” Steiner shared his thoughts on The Red Flags podcast. “They decided they didn’t want to do business with him anymore and they would deal with the consequences of his departure.”
I think that’s exactly what happened. The cup of patience is up. When a team has the same problem that hasn’t been solved for years, something has to change, because otherwise this problem will keep happening again and again.
More importantly, Alpine doesn’t have an equivalent replacement in the window. It’s one thing if a team has someone to invite to replace a departing driver, but I don’t see Ocon’s level of drivers available on the market at the moment.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
