Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon believe they can work together to achieve Alpine aims
Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon believe they can work together to achieve the Alpine team’s ambitions despite their cool personal relationship.
The Frenchmen were childhood friends and karting rivals but fell out some years ago.
“We are grown-up people, more mature, and we aware of the responsibilities of being Alpine drivers and having such a big group behind us,” Gasly said.
“We have to work closely together if we want to be competitive,” he added.
“That’s why I have no doubt everything will be fine.”
Gasly joins Alpine from the Alpha Tauri team, after driving for Red Bull-owned teams for his entire Formula 1 career.
The 27-year-old said: “I have spent more time with him over the last two months than I have spent over the last 10 years. Things are going well.”
Ocon, who has been with the Renault-owned team since 2020, said: “I am confident. You guys like the headlines and all these kinds of stories but we are both very professional and we are going to work the way we need to be performing.
“I don’t think we will ever be best friends but that doesn’t matter really as long as the atmosphere is great inside the team, and that’s how it is at the moment and that’s how it will remain during the year.
“What’s important is we keep those open conversations we are having at the moment and we will have during the season, because we are not at the point where we can win every race.
“We need to develop this car and get the maximum conversation flow going to find ideas moving forwards. I am not worried. It is going to be a great collaboration.”
Gasly said the move to a team owned by a car manufacturer felt almost like a new career.
“It is such big move for me,” he said, “closing a chapter of nine years with Red Bull and starting this new project with Alpine and seeing everything that is available and all the resources they have.
“With a manufacturer, there is no limit, no ceiling, which is what I used to have in a way in the past.”
Gasly started 2019 with Red Bull after an impressive debut season with what was then called Toro Rosso in 2018, before being demoted back again at the midway point after a difficult half-season.
Both men have won a single race in their careers, in races where circumstances conspired to give the midfield teams they were driving for at the time the chance to lead: Gasly in Italy in 2020 and Ocon in Hungary in 2021.
Together, they are charged with continuing Alpine’s progress towards the front of the grid.
The team moved up from fifth in the constructors’ championship in 2021 to fourth in 2022, clinching the spot at the final race of the season after a close battle with McLaren.
Alpine have set themselves a target of competing for a championship by 2025 and this year want to consolidate fourth place and move closer to the top three teams: Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes.
Last year they finished 342 points behind Mercedes.
Alpine chief executive officer Laurent Rossi said: “Two years ago, when we started the Alpine story, we knew we were on a climb to the summit and it is a marathon not a sprint. It is going to take time to get there.
“We gave ourselves five years, which is the 100-race plan. We were fifth in 2021, fourth in 2022, but with quite a distance to the front.
“We want to finish fourth again but close up, target assignment for all the guys here – and I know they can do it – but this time in a more robust fashion. More finishes, fewer DNFs and possibly more podiums too. Momentum is key.”
The car was launched in the pink colour of the team’s title company, an Austrian water organisation. Team principal Otmar Szafnauer said the car would race in Alpine’s traditional blue colour at the majority of the races but would be pink at “a few”, as was the case last year.
Luca de Meo, chief executive officer of parent company Renault, said: “We made progress the first two seasons. The team is coming together always stronger so I hope that kind of trend will continue, our ambition is to move closer to the top. We are here for the long term, to create a top team.”
Technical director Matt Harman said that among the developments on the new car were a revised nose design and a change in rear suspension concept from pull-rod to push-rod – with the suspension arms now running from the bottom of the wheels to the top of the gearbox mounting point rather than the other way around – to both save weight and enhance aerodynamics.
He added that the team, both at the chassis factory in Enstone Oxfordshire and the engine plant at Viry-Chatillon near Paris, had worked hard on power-unit reliability, which cost the team heavily in 2022 with a high number of retirements.
Gasly said: “Most of the issues – or all of these issues – should have been solved this year.”
The team also announced the next stage of their programme aimed at finding a female F1 driver, and unveiled football legend Zinedine Zidane as a brand ambassador.
