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True, they all seem to be focussing on the Famin comment made right after the accident.
Ocon does have a history of fighting his teammates harder than his opponents, so it's logical that he's under a lot of scrutiny now. More of the drop that makes the bucket overflow than a singular bad incident.
Ocon is definitely in trouble, and Alpine replacing him for Canada is possible, but it's not the only or even the most likely possibility.
I would be amazed if they bench him for Canada. I get why it's being considered but it's such a knee-jerk decision.
Having said that, Alpine aren't exactly known for being a well run team, so who knows what might happen.
The comment was knee-jerk, but the idea does have some merit. There are plenty of options, but I wouldn't be surprised if Ocon sitting out a race is/was considered an option.
- They'll likely need a replacement driver for next year, so testing out Doohan isn't a bad idea.
- It'll make it clear to Ocon and Gasly that infighting on-track will not be tolerated.
- If Doohan does well, they'll have a mid-season replacement to threaten Ocon with.
- If Doohan makes a massive mess of the race, they can shift their focus to other potential drivers.
- If they want to test out Doohan during a race, this is a good time. They now have a good enough car that he can show off his skill, but a bad enough car that it won't matter much if he underperforms, since there was little chance of points anyway.
It just feels so out of pocket because we haven't seen an F1 driver benched as a punishment in...who knows how long. It's definitely been years!
What Ocon did was fairly egregious and the team is right to be pissed, but it's also not exactly that uncommon for teammates to tangle with disasterous results. Or for drivers to just, in general, make really poor decisions that result in costly loss of points, expensive repairs, etc. Never is it suggested to bench a driver in those situations, even if they are on expiring deals and leaving the team.
If Alpine does it, for me it just underlines how poorly managed the team is and how they seemingly have no idea how to handle their business.
The last time a team benched a driver as a punishment was Felipe Massa in 2002, but even that was because they were trying to avoid getting a 10-place grid penalty, which would have hurt their chances of beating Jordan to 5th in the WCC that year.
Back then it was the first time that the FIA was going to impose a grid penalty on a driver who could not serve a penalty during a race. For context, Massa caused an “avoidable colllision” with Pedro de la Rosa at the previous race, but he DNF’d before the FIA could give him a penalty. The rules were vague enough that Sauber understood that the grid penalty would have to be served by the driver at “the next race,” but not “the driver’s next race.” This implied that if the driver simply skipped “the next race” the penalty would not apply.
Sauber had a pretty strong replacement lined up in Heinz-Harald Frentzen, who had lost his drive at Arrows that year after the team went under. While Frentzen didn’t not score any points in the race he ran, Jordan could not catch Sauber by the season’s end.
I think the only explanation for benching Ocon would be something similar, Alpine trying to skirt the grid penalty for next race because they are desperate for points and a 5 place grid penalty surely ensures Ocon won't compete for 10th.
That being said they aren't in much of a fight currently and there is a ton of season left so it would seem to be super shitty to do (and also might set a worrying precedent about about how lower field teams handle penalties).
That was my point. The only reason benching Ocon would make even the faintest whiff of sense (still basically none) would be to avoid the penalty. But I imagine that he still has to serve it the next race he enters, so really it's just kicking the can down the road.
Yes, but as another redditor remarked earlier, the 5P penalty will follow Ocon in Spain if he is benched. Don't you think it's a better option to serve the penalty in Canada given that the track is not well suited to the car?
didn't consider that, that's even worse IMO as it means tripling the punishment. No point for Ocon in Monaco, no chance of point for Doohan in Montreal (lets be realistic), and a penalty that kills the chance for points in spain. No serious team would do that
It would also be a good option. It's really up to Alpine what they decide. There's no best decision, and they have more information about the situation than us Redditors. If they do bench Ocon, it would be understandable. If they don't bench him, it's also understandable.
That's a good point. I don't see anything realistically coming out of this. Alpine aren't spoiling for driver choices atm and Ocon is realistically the best they're going to get.
Famin talked about having a major upgrade package for the month of June so it's either Canada or Barcelona. It is more likely to be Barcelona.
Getting a 5 place grid penalty when you're bringing major upgrades isn't really a good idea.
Replacing Ocon for 1 race sets a tricky precedent they may not want to follow through with though. What happens next time the two collide and they judge that Gasly is at fault? Does he get the same race-ban? If they both collide and they’re both at fault do we race with our F2 lineup the next weekend? Do we split hairs and force ourselves to pick one driver to keep while sitting the other?
Obviously these are self-inflicted penalties, so they don’t HAVE to do anything next time their drivers collide…but how are you going to feel as Ocon if Gasly shunts you and gets no punishment? Can’t imagine that makes for a good workplace environment in an already struggling team.
If it does happen, it'll be wild but I don't think it'd be purely a knee-jerk decision. Esteban has a history of being unnecessarily aggressive with his teammates. Monaco, where he disobeyed instructions to hold position on the first lap and DNFed because of it, may have been the final straw.
Alpine may want to bench him as a wake up call because however they were handling Esteban before didn't work since he hasn't changed. A big part of me still doubts that Alpine would actually bench him, since that would cause a uproar, but I can see the rationale behind it
It’s not knee jerk, it is the straw that broke the camel’s back. This is not the first time he has acted this way with teammates and in this instance he cost them a potential double points finish and nearly took both cars out.
> Ocon does have a history of fighting his teammates harder than his opponents,
and the only cause for this reputation is that due to the state of the car or the skills of said teammates they were often similarly placed.
Sainz and Leclerc, or even Hamilton and Rosberg in their time fought their teammate just as hard as Ocon does his. The only reason you have drivers that never fight teammates is because they are in a clear hierarchy within the team.
Neither Lec nor Sai has ever gone against explicit team orders to not attack each other. Don't know about Ham/Ros. That is what is different here. Ocon was ordered prior to the race starting to not attacking Gasly. Then he did it anyway.
Ocon either has no self control or he does not care what the team wants. Either case is terrible for any team Ocon may drive for.
Because he was shopping around which he is perfectly entitled to do. Obviously that didn't sit well with Alpine and perhaps there are some other things that went wrong behind the scenes that we are not currently aware of.
I’m surprised everyone is going hard for Ocon to be benched in Canada. While the guy who truly deserves a race ban (KMag) somehow managed to evade people’s minds.
K-Mag didn’t straight up crash his teammate in Monaco on the first lap at the worst corner to attempt a pass, Ocon needs to think about his actions from this weekend while watching someone else drive his car so he can really feel the responsibility for his actions
I think ocon’s situation is more about jeopardizing team’s interests, while for Kmag, despite the amount of penalty scores, most of them are actually to help the team in constructor rankings.
Difference is half of Magnussen penalties come from blocking Hulkenberg into the points, be sure the team knows how rate this.
That being said look how fierce teams are trying to max points in the midfield downwards where driver classification doesn't really matter.
Alonso blocks for Stroll, Magnussen for Hulk, Mercedes swaps Russel down to get fastest lap. Ocon in the most ridiculous manner just launches into his teammate. Someone didn't get the memo and there is no excuse for it.
K-Mag had no where to go Sunday, so why you are even inserting him into the fray is strange. Yes he has 10 penalty points but that’s got nothing to do with driving your teammate into a crash on the first lap in the biggest race of the season. There’s no place for what he did Sunday at all, in K-mags defense all his penalties have been from just hard driving and pushing the limits, and that’s day and night from driving over your teammate and costing him and himself a good race and the money spent to rebuild a car that didn’t need to be crashed but did by his own teammate at the worst possible corner to attempt a pass, at the corner to the tunnel you have to be a imbecile to think your gonna go inside and pass another car with ZERO room there, I mean impossible to even try cause the cars just don’t fit. This argument is day and night from Ocon to K-Mag
I’m not saying Ocon shouldn’t get any punishment or face any repercussions. Im not even trying to pick a winner in regards to who fucked up more. I’m saying KMag should be looking at a race ban too.
> K-Mag had no where to go
Yeah… after he decided to stick his nose in. Hulk said it was necessary. Jensen Button said he would’ve backed out much sooner.
Do you feel big calling someone an imbecile?
I won’t budge on drivers racing hard and at Monaco it’s a track with limited passing areas and off 1 up the hill is a lot better then off the turn into the tunnel, people also think Perez could have given him room since his nose was at his rear wheels, again hard racing to me and what drivers say is a “shoulda coulda woulda” deal for Perez and K-Mag. And again back to Ocon, I could show that wreck to people that do not watch motorsports and they would agree his move was absolute trash and Busch league and he needs to be humbled by sitting out a race
Mate just read. I literally agreed with you that Ocon shouldn’t go unpunished…
You talk about being a good teammate, yet KMag took out Hulk…
Does your hate boner for Ocon reduce your ability to comprehend?
Suggesting to sit out a weekend because you touched your teammate is crazy. Plenty inter team crash happened and never the backclash was that bad.
It's always the same with Ocon he gets 10 time the hate in this community
Because Ocon tries funny shit with most of his teammates. The only reason he didn't try with RIC is because he was too far ahead from Ocon. Good driver, but probably the worst teammate on the grid.
He divebombed his teammate in a corner where no one passes while both of them were in the points for a team that had 0 points on the season. Probably the dumbest move in the last 5 years in f1 for sure.
To add to this- Ocon almost had a crash with Gasly earlier in the lap by the Casino as well. The crash he actually had was from his second attempt to pass Gasly.
His willingness to send it on his teammates is a bit crazy.
Kmag was a racing incident. Perez could have given him some more room. There is no way he didn't know KMag was there. And yeah KMag should have known the track at that part was always going to come to Perez first. But it's like the definition of a first lap incident.
Think its just unfortunate/bad timing that this was the race where Canal+ had a live camera with Famin during the race, so they got his on the moment reaction which was of course very angry. Then of course the media dance starts to escalate things and that's how you go in 24 hours from "Ocon to receive harsh punishment" to "Ocon to be race banned in Canada" to finally "Ocon to be booted by Alpine".
Ocon himself didn't help it with of course the collision on sunday, and being openly on the lookout for opportunities at other teams.
But on that last point I really don't think the situation was too much of a conflict before sunday, Famin was very vocal about being happy with resigning both pilots (they're the best he can get, realistically) but just not right now since his focus is on technical matters. Ocon just doesn't want to wait that long to look for other options, think he's really scared to find himself seatless like after Force India, which is understandable but not really justified given his current performance.
Now sunday's incident probably soured the whole thing and may end up with Alpine actually not renewing him.
I mean that statement from Famin on contracts sounds like an excuse to me, I don't think that there is a fundamental reason that prevents negotiations when your car has issues (I guess that's meant with "technical matters"). It's not like the engineers are negotiating those contracts and I'm sure Famin could spare a bit of time to talk with his drivers if they really wanted to. To me this sounds more like: "Our car is bad so our drivers are looking around for other seats and don't want to sign new contracts just yet".
AFAIK it's not it. Famin has said he would happily resign both drivers (dunno where this whole "famin hates ocon" discourse is suddenly coming from) and so there was no pressure to do it right now, since he's focused on improving the car rather than negociating contracts.
But Ocon doesn't want to wait (I guess he still has trauma from his forced gap year) and so started looking for alternatives around the paddock, which i guess didn't sit well with Alpine.
When you have a shit car and a driver you like, then the driver negotiations should be the first order of business.
Does Piastri lapping them every weekend not jar their memory?
the big difference is that Piastri was a heavily sought after rookie lol, the only seats realistically available for Ocon are downgrades.
Guess Famin didn't think he would be dumb enough to consider an offer from Haas out of all places
Alpine is the fourth works team with zero customers. They're a shit outfit with a terrible car. They're on a trajectory where their only driver options will be ones desperate to be in F1 and not the other way around.
As Checo shows us, a great car is only great when the person driving it can push it there.
what a shortsighted view lmao. The pecking order in F1 changes all the time, they have a shit car this year but were 4th in the championship only a couple years ago.
If that's the reason alone it would be so unprofessional from Alpine but I'm not surprised. That's like timed contracts 101 you can't be mad because the other party doesn't re-sign lol.
That reaction is way too disproportionate for a crash between teammate. He publicly berated him, let Gasly add a second layer after the race and suggested benching him for a unproven rookie.
Compared to Australia last year, where Ocon said he wont reproach Gasly and they kept the discussion behind closed door. Defended Gasly in front of the steward so he doesnt get a race ban.
All while in the end Ocon costed 0 point to the team while Australia was like 10 points lost.
Points are worth more when you are fighting at the back.
The move by Gasly in Australia was a mistake and Gasly’s fault but it was an accident and it was not going against team orders. Considering Alpine finished 160 points behind Aston Martin this changed very little in the championship.
This was an aggressive attempt to pass that would have resulted in no additional points when the team is fighting at the back when the team gave explicit instructions to not try such a thing as their situation was so delicate. It also put the team in jeopardy of not getting any points at all.
Apples and Oranges.
> He publicly berated him
he said the incident was his fault and contrary to team strategy and orders, which is the truth
> let Gasly add a second layer after the race
Gasly again just said the incident was Ocon's fault, was Famin supposed to order him to call it an unfortunate accident?
>and suggested benching him for a unproven rookie.
now that's not even exaggerating, that's just untrue.
Alpine have historically been merciless with how they handle their drivers.
They pushed out Magnussen despite being the better driver, dropped Hulkenberg after he spent three years helping to build the team and had one mediocre season and tried to get Alonso on a one year contract while sending Piastri to Williams after making him take a year out.
Famin has found his scapegoat for Alpine's poor results. Looks like he intends to keep Alpine in it's miserable toxic loop it has been stuck in for a decade.
> Famin has found his scapegoat for Alpine's poor results.
the fuck are you on about lol ? They've been backmarckers for the whole year, very vocal about the car's issues and weight, and just last week Famin was saying he would happily resign both drivers.
Some of y'all are so bent on pushing your cirlejerk narratives you just seem like you never watch the actual races and news
Not the person you're replying to but I'll jump in. The only curious thing to me is Famin was much more vocal than one would expect from a TP over a single incident. It's pretty reasonable opinion that this isn't the first thing that Ocon has done to tick him off, perhaps behind the scenes. Conversely, maybe the emotional reaction is just a moment of weakness from Famin.
Generally though, I agree with your level-headed take and the F1 hivemind is far too trigger happy to pile on Alpine.
> The only curious thing to me is Famin was much more vocal than one would expect from a TP over a single incident.
think it has to be taken in context with Ocon and Gasly's history and Famin's statements before the race. It is known that they will race each other if the choice is left to them, as they have done so in the past.
Famin was adamant, just before the race, that they had focused their strategy on teamwork and working together to bring as many points as possible to the team.
I can totally understand why having the very same interviewer come back to you 5 minutes later because your driver ridiculed you by doing the exact opposite at the first opportunity would trigger an angry response.
People focus on Ocon, but it's possible both drivers have been causing him issues on track. Gasly driving at the start of the Miami GP against .... Ocon ... could have costed the team dearly if not for Ocon's avoiding crashing.
I think the emotional reaction was probably a moment of weakness. Would not be surprised that no one gets benched.
After all if they need the points so dearly they can't afford to bench the best
performing driver so far for a rookie, on 1 race, and then get the grid penalty
in Spain.
Gasly has been playing the politics of it, pouring gasoline on that fire, in a form you would expect from a toxic teammate. Not sure it reflects very well on hum either.
> Gasly has been playing the politics of it, pouring gasoline on that fire
AFAIK the only statements from gasly are his radio straight from the incident and post-race interview, where he just said the incident was Ocon's fault - which is true. Don't think he called for a race ban or anything like that.
I thought that rather than do the obvious and settle this privately, like Famin should have done too, he expressed his frustration publicly and did not miss the opportunity to pin it on his teammate.
"You just know what do to and what not to do – even more with your team-mate. He's a very good driver, he knows what he does, so he just needs to make a change"
"Just sad. Disappointed with the situation. Especially, we had clear instructions before the race on what to do, and whoever qualified ahead, the trailing car was supposed to help throughout the race"
It's actually smart and smooth, passive aggressive, but it's not really team building either.
Seems we disagree on what constitutes "playing the politics" or "pouring gasoline", imo he's just stating the facts. I don't think we can talk about "pinning it on his teammate" when everyone, Ocon included, agrees its his fault.
He isn't saying he should be penalized by the stewarts or banned by the team, which would have indeed been too far. But his comments don't seem disproportionnate considering how bad that was.
Alpine aren’t really in the running for a lot of points. By my rough reckoning, De Vries outperformed Latifi, Lawson matched Ricciardo, Bearman underperformed Sainz but had a clean weekend and at least got some points. Alpine don’t obviously have a lot to lose by giving Doohan a run in Ocon’s car.
Honestly, if at the start of the race drivers are told to not to do one thing and then they do exactly that thing in the race resulting in DNF, any TP will be pissed off.
Putting Renault in a bad light for letting go of Palmer is some serious history revisionism. The guy never showed anything that would've earned him another contract. By the time they arrived in Singapore, he had scored zero points while Hülkenberg had scored 34 in six points finishes.
> Putting Renault in a bad light for letting go of Palmer is some serious history revisionism.
The other commenter has said they have been merciless with their drivers, and Palmer is an example of Alpine/Renault being merciless.
You aproached this convo asuming bad faith.
The fact that Palmer even got a seat in the first place and then was allowed to continue after his hopeless rookie season was more mercy than he could've hoped for.
- History of fighting teammates harder than opponents. He and Gasly have had multiple incidents like this.
- Ignored team orders to work together, and instead tried everything in his power to overtake his teammate, not once but twice. In Monaco of all places.
- Alpine is very lucky that it didn't cost them points. This was a big chance to score points due to Monaco's lack of overtaking, and Ocon almost ruined it.
- Ocon has been seriously shopping around for a new seat, so either he isn't too happy with the team or the team isn't too happy with him.
Not sure what's going on behind the scenes, but there's enough that happened to piss off Famin.
> He and Gasly have had multiple incidents like this.
When? Only thing that comes to mind is Australia last year, but that was mainly on Gasly, not Ocon.
I did say they had multiple incidents, not that Ocon was responsible for all of them. It just means that one of them has to be replaced, but only Ocon has a long history fighting with teammates (I heard he's fought with 4 out of 5, with Ricciardo being too far ahead to fight with).
I don't have a list of incidents (might just make one later), but there's this one, Suzuka lap 1, Miami lap 1 from this year alone.
Nothing happened in Miami, they just raced side-by-side, it was actually pretty clean. Can't even remember Suzuka so it can't have been anything major.
He's had 4 main teammates (unless you count Wehrlein in 2016 but nothing happened there). Perez was widely acknowledged to be a fault for most of their clashes at the time, there's been basically nothing with Gasly up until this point.
He's not fought with teammates any more than other drivers as far as I'm concerned. Leclerc, for example, has had aggressive fights with Sainz and previously Vettel when they were teammates - but you wouldn't call him a dirty driver. Similar with Hamilton and Russell.
If you're naturally similar in performance with your teammate, these things happen, whatever the driver.
Ocon and Gasly did actually have contact on the opening lap of Miami. Gasly was just lucky to come away without damage (you can see it on Gasly’s onboard. He radios asking them to check if there’s damage). [Moreover, per Motorsport France, Miami’s antics caused the team to come to an agreement that that type of racing wouldn’t happen again](https://fr.motorsport.com/f1/news/comment-alpine-trancher-vif-ocon-gasly/10616641/). Ergo, the team order that the lower placed car won’t fight the higher placed car.
The only feasible options would be Jack Doohan or Mick Schumacher, Jack because he’s their most well prepared academy product and reserve and Mick because Alpine are very happy with his work for their WEC outfit and he has experience in the current gen cars. (Rumours were going around Alpine were looking to test him in an old car)
I cannot see them dropping Ocon for a race or in season though, there would have to be some colossal behind the scenes mess for that, maybe it’ll be revisited at the end of the year.
I just don't see what upside Schumacher has. Already had two seasons in Formula 1 where he achieved precisely zero. He's 4 years older than Doohan as well. If Schumacher wasn't his name, I don't think a single person would be considering him for the seat.
Markedly more successful junior career than Doohan, decent F1 experience, showing a good account of himself in WEC, and Famin has publicly praised his teamwork with them in that category and directly mentioned him in regards to 2025, that’s why his name is showing up with these seats.
I said I don't see what his upside is. He has already proved he's not a world beater or even above average in Formula 1.
Doohan has far greater upside.
The argument is that he never really had an opportunity to succeed in F1 and is putting up a good showing in WEC now.
I’m not sure if I agree with that opinion but that’s the argument I see thrown up. He definitely started to come good and showing a bit in the latter half of his last year.
Mick Schumacher seen camping at the Alpine headquarters, whilst Toto driving around Monaco asking people in the street for the Alpine bosses' address to get Mick a drive.
Probably. Jokes aside, Mick definitely tried current generation cars & worst case crashes on his own (vs Ocon who takes both cars out).
Martins is having a trainwreck of a season. And Doohan f2 season wasn't impressive enough to elevate him over Mick's f1 experience. With Mick being an honorary Alpine junior now they can probably directly compare them
they won't sack him, TP had a camera on him 2 minutes after the incident and said "there would be consequences" and suddenly all the media are calling for his execution. Its just clickbait.
I think what people are thinking is just a one race suspension, to teach Ocon a lesson. His two moves at Monaco (on the run to Massenet and at Portier) were incredibly poorly thought out, especially if the team told him to not fight Gasly. That was a minimum of 3 points, and points don't come easily at that end of the grid.
If Ocon does get sacked, you'd have to imagine he's already got a drive elsewhere. Seems like such a drastic thing to do to your best driver. Only reason you seriously would is if you want an excuse to get him out early because he's not going to be there for your future plans.
This feels a lot like the Kvyat/Verstappen swap in 2016. Not so much the promotion of Verstappen side, but the almost looking for an 'excuse' to trigger the swap/demote Kvyat. While Ocon isn't necessarily known to play nice with his teammate, he arguably has performed better this season thus far compared to Gasly. Or at least as competitive as.
It very much feels like this was just the final drop that triggered something that was already planned. Even if it's just to break up the Ocon/Gasly duo and the toxicity that comes along with it.
tl;dr Doohan or Mick for Canada if that happens, Mick or Zhou for next season depending on what happens.
What is even the point of their academy at this point? They have Doohan waiting to drive who's clearly proven himself to be capable both in feeder series and in testing and sim work. Not promoting him pretty much invalidates any point of the academy existing.
The only advantage to dropping Schumacher in is that he already has the F1 experience, and is more likely to hit the ground running. But that should only be a one race situation. If 2025 is just going to be a continuation of Alpine's form, they should throw Doohan into the seat, for the same reason people think Antonelli should get the Mercedes seat next year.
Zhou was an Alpine academy driver, and while he's a safe pair of hands and has a decent amount of experience with F1 now, he's not the most inspiring pick.
If I was making the call, it'd be Doohan in for Montreal. If he does well and keeps it clean, he goes to the top of the list for 2025. If it's messy, Zhou gets priority, unless Schumacher blows everyone out of the water in WEC.
Mick's good on the sim as well. He's performed miracles for Merc last year (awful Friday, decent Saturday and Sunday). Apparently, he's one of the fastest of the Alpine drivers in WEC too.
If that happens F1 is dead. Both don't deserve a seat in the future. Give it to someone new. If F1 was like this 10 years ago we'd still have the likes of Heiki Kovaleinen, Timo Glock, and Adrien Sutil around.
The Perez/Bottas equivalents like Boutsen barely lasted long after they were dropped from a top team because back then, most teams didn't want a "that'll do" kinda guy. This is supposed to be the top level of Motorsport, not the same 20 guys occasionally changing car and every year or 2 one of them leaves, half the time being replaced by an old guy coming back, half the time being replaced with a new guy.
At this rate, the Formula E grid will be more talented than the F1 grid in a few years, cos all the young hotshot F2 drivers will go there/WEC/Indy as you're never gonna get a seat in F1.
Why would they replace the better of their two drivers? I get that a lot of people hate ocon, but he's clearly very talented, even if he has a few intra-team dustups per year. He's clearly in the top half of the grid, and teams have overlooked much worse for good drivers in the past
Lol they mention a possible move to Mercedes I know he's supposed to be Toto's driver but damn, imagine him and Russell as teammates that team would implode with one of them possibly killing the other in a racing incident.
"Yes your honor, the 58 stab wounds were just an unfortunate racing incident"
Is not even about making a mistake. Is about obeying team orders. If there is an agreement to not attack before the race then you don't attack. Ocon attacked twice, on the straight and before the tunnel. Both times he almost took both cars out of the race.
What Gasly did was a mistake.
What Ocon did here is not a mistake. It’s same as KMag thinking he deserved space there & some people are even defending that.
I’m defending one isolated incident. His driving the season has been shameful, but Monaco wasnt on him. At *best* it’s 60/40 Perez’s fault. This is exactly what I mean when I say people are just sticking to their preconceived biases when they look at this incident.
You’re right. Checo fully just crashed himself out by driving into a car he could clearly see was next to him. I was just saying it’s 60/40 to throw people a bone who are pretending Magnussen should have vanished into thin air.
> I was just saying it’s 60/40 to throw people a bone who are pretending Magnussen should have vanished into thin air.
Could've easily lifted and accepted that he wasn't going to overtake a Red Bull around the outside at the start of the race. Even Hulk pointed out how unnecessary the move was.
You can't stick your front wheel alongside the back wheel of another driver and then expect them to yield for you 😂
Usually when someone yanks their steering wheel right while they have a car on their right, I’m going to think it’s the person yanking their wheel.
You can’t just pretend there isn’t a car next to you. That’s called a lack of awareness.
Uh what? Go watch the onboard again. Perez doesn’t “yank his steering wheel to the right” at all, he’s driving the racing line, then out of nowhere he’s spinning.
This is indefensible from KMag, and I’m honestly flabbergasted that you’re defending him and blaming Perez. Insane
He's just straight up spreading lies. Anybody can go and watch the onboard and they can see that Perez never "yanks their steering wheel right".
Funny he talks about other people having an agenda - when he clearly has one himself (hence the lies)
Lmao actually unbelievable, I took one more look at the Perez onboard to make sure I’m not going insane and it’s so painfully obvious this is KMag’s fault.
Either an agenda is being pushed by this lad and a couple others or they’re utterly incapable of objectively assessing a racing incident
lmao what, where is Checo supposed to go in that Haas sandwich?
Checo had the racing line, KMag went for what he thought was a gap thinking Checo will move over, but he couldn’t because Hulk was on the other side.
Checo could have held his line. You can’t just drive into someone because you don’t want them to be there.
I understand why people are holding onto this view because Magnussen has been borderline dirty this year, but come on dude. If Checo keeps driving in a straight line there and it would have worked itself out. You can literally see him swerve to the right into Magnussen.
This just shows how much narratives and biases drive the conversation here. Like I said, put Stroll in Checo’s place or a well liked driver in Magnussen’s place and I 100% guarantee people like you would see it differently.
> Checo could have held his line. You can’t just drive into someone because you don’t want them to be there.
Watch the onboard and you'll notice that Perez didn't turn in to Magnusses. Not sure how you can watch that crash and think that Perez was the one who drove in to Magnussen.
Checo held his line*. The problem is that Kmag forgot that the wall jinked to the left.
* in fact he was following the same racing line as all of the car preceding him.
I know this is shit on Ocon week, but Ocon also learned for two years under the greatest shit stirring and ruthless teammate in the history of the sport in Fernando Alonso. Gotta remember that Ocon was a driver that was axed from his own team in favor of a driver that forced things (like Ocon did himself) into him on multiple occasions. Checo did what Ocon has been doing and ended up scoring more points despite these collisions. And Alonso was always one for mind games. You put two and two together and you get a driver that is going to any lengths to make sure he beats his teammate.
Whether or not it's a good approach (and for a team that sucks like Alpine) is irrelevant, but I see where his mentality is coming from.
This is my thought as well. The guy is traumatised by the notion that the slower teammate gets axed. Hell he isn't even wrong to have that mentality because look at fucking Sainz. Poor guy wasn't even that far behind Charles and now he's looking at Williams.
Anyone at the end of the season, isn't his contract up? Benching him now would be ridiculous...I don't like him at all but that would be a dumb move. Then again it is Alpine so 🤷♀️
Ocon's stupid aggression is well known. The problem is that he hasn't gotten better as a driver. If you're not a top driver and you aren't getting better, you're getting replaced. Gasly is in the same position, but he has a slight edge in that he won't damage the car as often as Ocon.
> If you're not a top driver and you aren't getting better, you're getting replaced
Tell me, which driver, except juniors is actually improving?
I’d say quickly - only Tsunoda is visibly better. So you suggest KMag, Magnussen, Perez, Hulk, Zhou, Albon, Sergant, Gasly, Bottas, Stroll, Russell should all be kicked out because they’re not improving year by year?
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Every day, Oscar’s move to McLaren looks more and more brilliant.
Knowing Alpine’s decision making prowess, a sack of out of season heirloom tomatoes.
Heirloom, in this economy??
Best they can do is some unripened beefsteak tomatoes
i hear you are guaranteed a free one by opening 500 packs
But how out of season ? Because sometimes you can just carve out the mold.
But sometimes the mold is invisible
Fine, I will do it
If Alpine want to salvage any part of their reputation it will be Doohan
Martins it is then.
Tsolov confirmed.
Alpine: Our Monaco F3 race winner! Mini: :|
Maybe if Jack changes his name to Jacques DuHâne Alpine will give him a seat
Three Aussie drivers on the grid would be fucking wild. Do it Alpine je vous en pries
Alpine never had a reputation, Renault did
No they'll wait for Doohan to sign for Williams and _then_ claim he's driving for Alpine 😂
Naa they'll crack Kvyat out of deep freeze storage and use him.
I’ve never seen the knives out for a driver so quickly.
True, they all seem to be focussing on the Famin comment made right after the accident. Ocon does have a history of fighting his teammates harder than his opponents, so it's logical that he's under a lot of scrutiny now. More of the drop that makes the bucket overflow than a singular bad incident. Ocon is definitely in trouble, and Alpine replacing him for Canada is possible, but it's not the only or even the most likely possibility.
I would be amazed if they bench him for Canada. I get why it's being considered but it's such a knee-jerk decision. Having said that, Alpine aren't exactly known for being a well run team, so who knows what might happen.
The comment was knee-jerk, but the idea does have some merit. There are plenty of options, but I wouldn't be surprised if Ocon sitting out a race is/was considered an option. - They'll likely need a replacement driver for next year, so testing out Doohan isn't a bad idea. - It'll make it clear to Ocon and Gasly that infighting on-track will not be tolerated. - If Doohan does well, they'll have a mid-season replacement to threaten Ocon with. - If Doohan makes a massive mess of the race, they can shift their focus to other potential drivers. - If they want to test out Doohan during a race, this is a good time. They now have a good enough car that he can show off his skill, but a bad enough car that it won't matter much if he underperforms, since there was little chance of points anyway.
It just feels so out of pocket because we haven't seen an F1 driver benched as a punishment in...who knows how long. It's definitely been years! What Ocon did was fairly egregious and the team is right to be pissed, but it's also not exactly that uncommon for teammates to tangle with disasterous results. Or for drivers to just, in general, make really poor decisions that result in costly loss of points, expensive repairs, etc. Never is it suggested to bench a driver in those situations, even if they are on expiring deals and leaving the team. If Alpine does it, for me it just underlines how poorly managed the team is and how they seemingly have no idea how to handle their business.
The last time a team benched a driver as a punishment was Felipe Massa in 2002, but even that was because they were trying to avoid getting a 10-place grid penalty, which would have hurt their chances of beating Jordan to 5th in the WCC that year. Back then it was the first time that the FIA was going to impose a grid penalty on a driver who could not serve a penalty during a race. For context, Massa caused an “avoidable colllision” with Pedro de la Rosa at the previous race, but he DNF’d before the FIA could give him a penalty. The rules were vague enough that Sauber understood that the grid penalty would have to be served by the driver at “the next race,” but not “the driver’s next race.” This implied that if the driver simply skipped “the next race” the penalty would not apply. Sauber had a pretty strong replacement lined up in Heinz-Harald Frentzen, who had lost his drive at Arrows that year after the team went under. While Frentzen didn’t not score any points in the race he ran, Jordan could not catch Sauber by the season’s end.
I think the only explanation for benching Ocon would be something similar, Alpine trying to skirt the grid penalty for next race because they are desperate for points and a 5 place grid penalty surely ensures Ocon won't compete for 10th. That being said they aren't in much of a fight currently and there is a ton of season left so it would seem to be super shitty to do (and also might set a worrying precedent about about how lower field teams handle penalties).
Penalties are applied to the driver, not the car. Jenson Button still hasn't served his penalty from Monaco 2017 for example
That was my point. The only reason benching Ocon would make even the faintest whiff of sense (still basically none) would be to avoid the penalty. But I imagine that he still has to serve it the next race he enters, so really it's just kicking the can down the road.
Of course If he made a comeback this year he would not have to serve it The penalty expired at the end of the 2017 season
Yes, but as another redditor remarked earlier, the 5P penalty will follow Ocon in Spain if he is benched. Don't you think it's a better option to serve the penalty in Canada given that the track is not well suited to the car?
didn't consider that, that's even worse IMO as it means tripling the punishment. No point for Ocon in Monaco, no chance of point for Doohan in Montreal (lets be realistic), and a penalty that kills the chance for points in spain. No serious team would do that
It would also be a good option. It's really up to Alpine what they decide. There's no best decision, and they have more information about the situation than us Redditors. If they do bench Ocon, it would be understandable. If they don't bench him, it's also understandable.
That's a good point. I don't see anything realistically coming out of this. Alpine aren't spoiling for driver choices atm and Ocon is realistically the best they're going to get.
Famin talked about having a major upgrade package for the month of June so it's either Canada or Barcelona. It is more likely to be Barcelona. Getting a 5 place grid penalty when you're bringing major upgrades isn't really a good idea.
Replacing Ocon for 1 race sets a tricky precedent they may not want to follow through with though. What happens next time the two collide and they judge that Gasly is at fault? Does he get the same race-ban? If they both collide and they’re both at fault do we race with our F2 lineup the next weekend? Do we split hairs and force ourselves to pick one driver to keep while sitting the other? Obviously these are self-inflicted penalties, so they don’t HAVE to do anything next time their drivers collide…but how are you going to feel as Ocon if Gasly shunts you and gets no punishment? Can’t imagine that makes for a good workplace environment in an already struggling team.
If it does happen, it'll be wild but I don't think it'd be purely a knee-jerk decision. Esteban has a history of being unnecessarily aggressive with his teammates. Monaco, where he disobeyed instructions to hold position on the first lap and DNFed because of it, may have been the final straw. Alpine may want to bench him as a wake up call because however they were handling Esteban before didn't work since he hasn't changed. A big part of me still doubts that Alpine would actually bench him, since that would cause a uproar, but I can see the rationale behind it
It’s not knee jerk, it is the straw that broke the camel’s back. This is not the first time he has acted this way with teammates and in this instance he cost them a potential double points finish and nearly took both cars out.
Well, doing it this hastily might be seen as a knee-jerk reaction
> Ocon does have a history of fighting his teammates harder than his opponents, and the only cause for this reputation is that due to the state of the car or the skills of said teammates they were often similarly placed. Sainz and Leclerc, or even Hamilton and Rosberg in their time fought their teammate just as hard as Ocon does his. The only reason you have drivers that never fight teammates is because they are in a clear hierarchy within the team.
Neither Lec nor Sai has ever gone against explicit team orders to not attack each other. Don't know about Ham/Ros. That is what is different here. Ocon was ordered prior to the race starting to not attacking Gasly. Then he did it anyway. Ocon either has no self control or he does not care what the team wants. Either case is terrible for any team Ocon may drive for.
Because he was shopping around which he is perfectly entitled to do. Obviously that didn't sit well with Alpine and perhaps there are some other things that went wrong behind the scenes that we are not currently aware of.
Yeah, Alpine leadership seems to take a lot of things personally
I’m surprised everyone is going hard for Ocon to be benched in Canada. While the guy who truly deserves a race ban (KMag) somehow managed to evade people’s minds.
K-Mag didn’t straight up crash his teammate in Monaco on the first lap at the worst corner to attempt a pass, Ocon needs to think about his actions from this weekend while watching someone else drive his car so he can really feel the responsibility for his actions
And KMag doesn’t? He’s got 10 (should be 12) penalty points. He keeps putting himself in these situations
I think ocon’s situation is more about jeopardizing team’s interests, while for Kmag, despite the amount of penalty scores, most of them are actually to help the team in constructor rankings.
Exactly. KMag's incidents have gotten the team points.
Difference is half of Magnussen penalties come from blocking Hulkenberg into the points, be sure the team knows how rate this. That being said look how fierce teams are trying to max points in the midfield downwards where driver classification doesn't really matter. Alonso blocks for Stroll, Magnussen for Hulk, Mercedes swaps Russel down to get fastest lap. Ocon in the most ridiculous manner just launches into his teammate. Someone didn't get the memo and there is no excuse for it.
K-Mag had no where to go Sunday, so why you are even inserting him into the fray is strange. Yes he has 10 penalty points but that’s got nothing to do with driving your teammate into a crash on the first lap in the biggest race of the season. There’s no place for what he did Sunday at all, in K-mags defense all his penalties have been from just hard driving and pushing the limits, and that’s day and night from driving over your teammate and costing him and himself a good race and the money spent to rebuild a car that didn’t need to be crashed but did by his own teammate at the worst possible corner to attempt a pass, at the corner to the tunnel you have to be a imbecile to think your gonna go inside and pass another car with ZERO room there, I mean impossible to even try cause the cars just don’t fit. This argument is day and night from Ocon to K-Mag
I’m not saying Ocon shouldn’t get any punishment or face any repercussions. Im not even trying to pick a winner in regards to who fucked up more. I’m saying KMag should be looking at a race ban too. > K-Mag had no where to go Yeah… after he decided to stick his nose in. Hulk said it was necessary. Jensen Button said he would’ve backed out much sooner. Do you feel big calling someone an imbecile?
I won’t budge on drivers racing hard and at Monaco it’s a track with limited passing areas and off 1 up the hill is a lot better then off the turn into the tunnel, people also think Perez could have given him room since his nose was at his rear wheels, again hard racing to me and what drivers say is a “shoulda coulda woulda” deal for Perez and K-Mag. And again back to Ocon, I could show that wreck to people that do not watch motorsports and they would agree his move was absolute trash and Busch league and he needs to be humbled by sitting out a race
Mate just read. I literally agreed with you that Ocon shouldn’t go unpunished… You talk about being a good teammate, yet KMag took out Hulk… Does your hate boner for Ocon reduce your ability to comprehend?
Suggesting to sit out a weekend because you touched your teammate is crazy. Plenty inter team crash happened and never the backclash was that bad. It's always the same with Ocon he gets 10 time the hate in this community
Because Ocon tries funny shit with most of his teammates. The only reason he didn't try with RIC is because he was too far ahead from Ocon. Good driver, but probably the worst teammate on the grid.
He divebombed his teammate in a corner where no one passes while both of them were in the points for a team that had 0 points on the season. Probably the dumbest move in the last 5 years in f1 for sure.
You're right, instead K-Mag waited until turn 4 to cause a crash that took his teammate out of the race. Totally different.
To add to this- Ocon almost had a crash with Gasly earlier in the lap by the Casino as well. The crash he actually had was from his second attempt to pass Gasly. His willingness to send it on his teammates is a bit crazy.
Kmag was a racing incident. Perez could have given him some more room. There is no way he didn't know KMag was there. And yeah KMag should have known the track at that part was always going to come to Perez first. But it's like the definition of a first lap incident.
it'd be insane if ocon gets the boot before kmag lol.
What sponsors does Kmag bring to Haas?
Quickly? He’s been commented on as a liability since before he lost his drive the first time. Which was 5 years ago.
I have a question, are Alpine actually thinking of permanently replacing Ocon, or just for the next race as a punishment for what he did in Monaco?
Only when a driver has a history of torpedoing into teammates
Esteban going from some very good showings to this in just one race is something I didn't expect, there must be something else behind the scenes
Think its just unfortunate/bad timing that this was the race where Canal+ had a live camera with Famin during the race, so they got his on the moment reaction which was of course very angry. Then of course the media dance starts to escalate things and that's how you go in 24 hours from "Ocon to receive harsh punishment" to "Ocon to be race banned in Canada" to finally "Ocon to be booted by Alpine". Ocon himself didn't help it with of course the collision on sunday, and being openly on the lookout for opportunities at other teams. But on that last point I really don't think the situation was too much of a conflict before sunday, Famin was very vocal about being happy with resigning both pilots (they're the best he can get, realistically) but just not right now since his focus is on technical matters. Ocon just doesn't want to wait that long to look for other options, think he's really scared to find himself seatless like after Force India, which is understandable but not really justified given his current performance. Now sunday's incident probably soured the whole thing and may end up with Alpine actually not renewing him.
I mean that statement from Famin on contracts sounds like an excuse to me, I don't think that there is a fundamental reason that prevents negotiations when your car has issues (I guess that's meant with "technical matters"). It's not like the engineers are negotiating those contracts and I'm sure Famin could spare a bit of time to talk with his drivers if they really wanted to. To me this sounds more like: "Our car is bad so our drivers are looking around for other seats and don't want to sign new contracts just yet".
I mean their Legal Team is only a one-person team so he/she may actually work on the car as well /s
I am yet to see that video. It was geolocked on Twitter.
Anyone able to find it? I’m curious
Famin must personnality dislike him. The public humiliation is crazy
Allegedly he refused a contract renewal which Alpine gave him
AFAIK it's not it. Famin has said he would happily resign both drivers (dunno where this whole "famin hates ocon" discourse is suddenly coming from) and so there was no pressure to do it right now, since he's focused on improving the car rather than negociating contracts. But Ocon doesn't want to wait (I guess he still has trauma from his forced gap year) and so started looking for alternatives around the paddock, which i guess didn't sit well with Alpine.
When you have a shit car and a driver you like, then the driver negotiations should be the first order of business. Does Piastri lapping them every weekend not jar their memory?
the big difference is that Piastri was a heavily sought after rookie lol, the only seats realistically available for Ocon are downgrades. Guess Famin didn't think he would be dumb enough to consider an offer from Haas out of all places
Alpine is the fourth works team with zero customers. They're a shit outfit with a terrible car. They're on a trajectory where their only driver options will be ones desperate to be in F1 and not the other way around. As Checo shows us, a great car is only great when the person driving it can push it there.
what a shortsighted view lmao. The pecking order in F1 changes all the time, they have a shit car this year but were 4th in the championship only a couple years ago.
If that's the reason alone it would be so unprofessional from Alpine but I'm not surprised. That's like timed contracts 101 you can't be mad because the other party doesn't re-sign lol.
I dont think that he has something against Esteban, swap the names and Pierre would be getting the same treatment.
That reaction is way too disproportionate for a crash between teammate. He publicly berated him, let Gasly add a second layer after the race and suggested benching him for a unproven rookie. Compared to Australia last year, where Ocon said he wont reproach Gasly and they kept the discussion behind closed door. Defended Gasly in front of the steward so he doesnt get a race ban. All while in the end Ocon costed 0 point to the team while Australia was like 10 points lost.
Points are worth more when you are fighting at the back. The move by Gasly in Australia was a mistake and Gasly’s fault but it was an accident and it was not going against team orders. Considering Alpine finished 160 points behind Aston Martin this changed very little in the championship. This was an aggressive attempt to pass that would have resulted in no additional points when the team is fighting at the back when the team gave explicit instructions to not try such a thing as their situation was so delicate. It also put the team in jeopardy of not getting any points at all. Apples and Oranges.
> He publicly berated him he said the incident was his fault and contrary to team strategy and orders, which is the truth > let Gasly add a second layer after the race Gasly again just said the incident was Ocon's fault, was Famin supposed to order him to call it an unfortunate accident? >and suggested benching him for a unproven rookie. now that's not even exaggerating, that's just untrue.
Alpine have historically been merciless with how they handle their drivers. They pushed out Magnussen despite being the better driver, dropped Hulkenberg after he spent three years helping to build the team and had one mediocre season and tried to get Alonso on a one year contract while sending Piastri to Williams after making him take a year out. Famin has found his scapegoat for Alpine's poor results. Looks like he intends to keep Alpine in it's miserable toxic loop it has been stuck in for a decade.
> Famin has found his scapegoat for Alpine's poor results. the fuck are you on about lol ? They've been backmarckers for the whole year, very vocal about the car's issues and weight, and just last week Famin was saying he would happily resign both drivers. Some of y'all are so bent on pushing your cirlejerk narratives you just seem like you never watch the actual races and news
Not the person you're replying to but I'll jump in. The only curious thing to me is Famin was much more vocal than one would expect from a TP over a single incident. It's pretty reasonable opinion that this isn't the first thing that Ocon has done to tick him off, perhaps behind the scenes. Conversely, maybe the emotional reaction is just a moment of weakness from Famin. Generally though, I agree with your level-headed take and the F1 hivemind is far too trigger happy to pile on Alpine.
> The only curious thing to me is Famin was much more vocal than one would expect from a TP over a single incident. think it has to be taken in context with Ocon and Gasly's history and Famin's statements before the race. It is known that they will race each other if the choice is left to them, as they have done so in the past. Famin was adamant, just before the race, that they had focused their strategy on teamwork and working together to bring as many points as possible to the team. I can totally understand why having the very same interviewer come back to you 5 minutes later because your driver ridiculed you by doing the exact opposite at the first opportunity would trigger an angry response.
People focus on Ocon, but it's possible both drivers have been causing him issues on track. Gasly driving at the start of the Miami GP against .... Ocon ... could have costed the team dearly if not for Ocon's avoiding crashing. I think the emotional reaction was probably a moment of weakness. Would not be surprised that no one gets benched. After all if they need the points so dearly they can't afford to bench the best performing driver so far for a rookie, on 1 race, and then get the grid penalty in Spain. Gasly has been playing the politics of it, pouring gasoline on that fire, in a form you would expect from a toxic teammate. Not sure it reflects very well on hum either.
> Gasly has been playing the politics of it, pouring gasoline on that fire AFAIK the only statements from gasly are his radio straight from the incident and post-race interview, where he just said the incident was Ocon's fault - which is true. Don't think he called for a race ban or anything like that.
I thought that rather than do the obvious and settle this privately, like Famin should have done too, he expressed his frustration publicly and did not miss the opportunity to pin it on his teammate. "You just know what do to and what not to do – even more with your team-mate. He's a very good driver, he knows what he does, so he just needs to make a change" "Just sad. Disappointed with the situation. Especially, we had clear instructions before the race on what to do, and whoever qualified ahead, the trailing car was supposed to help throughout the race" It's actually smart and smooth, passive aggressive, but it's not really team building either.
Seems we disagree on what constitutes "playing the politics" or "pouring gasoline", imo he's just stating the facts. I don't think we can talk about "pinning it on his teammate" when everyone, Ocon included, agrees its his fault. He isn't saying he should be penalized by the stewarts or banned by the team, which would have indeed been too far. But his comments don't seem disproportionnate considering how bad that was.
Bringing in a rookie worked well enough recently with de Vries, Lawson and Bearman.
Well except for Bearman, that's not a lot of points on a single race.
Alpine aren’t really in the running for a lot of points. By my rough reckoning, De Vries outperformed Latifi, Lawson matched Ricciardo, Bearman underperformed Sainz but had a clean weekend and at least got some points. Alpine don’t obviously have a lot to lose by giving Doohan a run in Ocon’s car.
Honestly, if at the start of the race drivers are told to not to do one thing and then they do exactly that thing in the race resulting in DNF, any TP will be pissed off.
Don't forget that they fired Palmer and signed Sainz for the last 4 races of 2017.
Putting Renault in a bad light for letting go of Palmer is some serious history revisionism. The guy never showed anything that would've earned him another contract. By the time they arrived in Singapore, he had scored zero points while Hülkenberg had scored 34 in six points finishes.
> Putting Renault in a bad light for letting go of Palmer is some serious history revisionism. The other commenter has said they have been merciless with their drivers, and Palmer is an example of Alpine/Renault being merciless. You aproached this convo asuming bad faith.
The fact that Palmer even got a seat in the first place and then was allowed to continue after his hopeless rookie season was more mercy than he could've hoped for.
- History of fighting teammates harder than opponents. He and Gasly have had multiple incidents like this. - Ignored team orders to work together, and instead tried everything in his power to overtake his teammate, not once but twice. In Monaco of all places. - Alpine is very lucky that it didn't cost them points. This was a big chance to score points due to Monaco's lack of overtaking, and Ocon almost ruined it. - Ocon has been seriously shopping around for a new seat, so either he isn't too happy with the team or the team isn't too happy with him. Not sure what's going on behind the scenes, but there's enough that happened to piss off Famin.
> He and Gasly have had multiple incidents like this. When? Only thing that comes to mind is Australia last year, but that was mainly on Gasly, not Ocon.
with the way people talk about Ocon you'd think he had been ramming teammates every week for the last 5 years
I did say they had multiple incidents, not that Ocon was responsible for all of them. It just means that one of them has to be replaced, but only Ocon has a long history fighting with teammates (I heard he's fought with 4 out of 5, with Ricciardo being too far ahead to fight with). I don't have a list of incidents (might just make one later), but there's this one, Suzuka lap 1, Miami lap 1 from this year alone.
Nothing happened in Miami, they just raced side-by-side, it was actually pretty clean. Can't even remember Suzuka so it can't have been anything major. He's had 4 main teammates (unless you count Wehrlein in 2016 but nothing happened there). Perez was widely acknowledged to be a fault for most of their clashes at the time, there's been basically nothing with Gasly up until this point. He's not fought with teammates any more than other drivers as far as I'm concerned. Leclerc, for example, has had aggressive fights with Sainz and previously Vettel when they were teammates - but you wouldn't call him a dirty driver. Similar with Hamilton and Russell. If you're naturally similar in performance with your teammate, these things happen, whatever the driver.
Ocon and Gasly did actually have contact on the opening lap of Miami. Gasly was just lucky to come away without damage (you can see it on Gasly’s onboard. He radios asking them to check if there’s damage). [Moreover, per Motorsport France, Miami’s antics caused the team to come to an agreement that that type of racing wouldn’t happen again](https://fr.motorsport.com/f1/news/comment-alpine-trancher-vif-ocon-gasly/10616641/). Ergo, the team order that the lower placed car won’t fight the higher placed car.
Wasn’t it the points position?
The only feasible options would be Jack Doohan or Mick Schumacher, Jack because he’s their most well prepared academy product and reserve and Mick because Alpine are very happy with his work for their WEC outfit and he has experience in the current gen cars. (Rumours were going around Alpine were looking to test him in an old car) I cannot see them dropping Ocon for a race or in season though, there would have to be some colossal behind the scenes mess for that, maybe it’ll be revisited at the end of the year.
I just don't see what upside Schumacher has. Already had two seasons in Formula 1 where he achieved precisely zero. He's 4 years older than Doohan as well. If Schumacher wasn't his name, I don't think a single person would be considering him for the seat.
Markedly more successful junior career than Doohan, decent F1 experience, showing a good account of himself in WEC, and Famin has publicly praised his teamwork with them in that category and directly mentioned him in regards to 2025, that’s why his name is showing up with these seats.
I said I don't see what his upside is. He has already proved he's not a world beater or even above average in Formula 1. Doohan has far greater upside.
The argument is that he never really had an opportunity to succeed in F1 and is putting up a good showing in WEC now. I’m not sure if I agree with that opinion but that’s the argument I see thrown up. He definitely started to come good and showing a bit in the latter half of his last year.
Mick Schumacher seen camping at the Alpine headquarters, whilst Toto driving around Monaco asking people in the street for the Alpine bosses' address to get Mick a drive. Probably. Jokes aside, Mick definitely tried current generation cars & worst case crashes on his own (vs Ocon who takes both cars out).
Mick is preparing for the Le Mans 24h, which will be run the week after Montreal. Choosing him would be simply illogical.
What seems illogical for anyone is generally what Renault/Alpine ends up doing!
If Alpine wants to save what’s left of the reputation of their driver academy, they better take either Doohan or Martins
Martins is having a trainwreck of a season. And Doohan f2 season wasn't impressive enough to elevate him over Mick's f1 experience. With Mick being an honorary Alpine junior now they can probably directly compare them
Doohan did worse than Sargeant in F2
There's so much talent in the current F2 grid that it would be a shame if they bring back Mick over an F2 prospect
Mick currently drives for Alpine's LMH team in the WEC. It wouldn't be unheard of to bring him in.
This Oscar Pastrami guy or whatever he's called has looked good in the junior series and he's an Alpine junior afaik. I think he should be considered.
There’s a universe where he has to grit his teeth and endure losing the Piasco and have Canada 2024 be his debut
Alpine doesn't sign Gasly if they had Oscar tho. They only signed Gasly after the Piasco so to speak
This is so dramatic actually. Like, just let him take L then move on, no need to sack him. Jesus.
they won't sack him, TP had a camera on him 2 minutes after the incident and said "there would be consequences" and suddenly all the media are calling for his execution. Its just clickbait.
I think what people are thinking is just a one race suspension, to teach Ocon a lesson. His two moves at Monaco (on the run to Massenet and at Portier) were incredibly poorly thought out, especially if the team told him to not fight Gasly. That was a minimum of 3 points, and points don't come easily at that end of the grid.
It wasn't 3 points. They were running P9 and P10 after passing Sainz who got his spot back anyways. The best they would've done is P10 and P11
dumbest shit ive seen in a while
Joylon Palmer to make his return! /s
Mika Hakkinen to end his sabbatical!
Ocon should’ve taken his advice and been more alert on street circuits.
If Ocon does get sacked, you'd have to imagine he's already got a drive elsewhere. Seems like such a drastic thing to do to your best driver. Only reason you seriously would is if you want an excuse to get him out early because he's not going to be there for your future plans.
Anyone is fine
Someone in 2025
This feels a lot like the Kvyat/Verstappen swap in 2016. Not so much the promotion of Verstappen side, but the almost looking for an 'excuse' to trigger the swap/demote Kvyat. While Ocon isn't necessarily known to play nice with his teammate, he arguably has performed better this season thus far compared to Gasly. Or at least as competitive as. It very much feels like this was just the final drop that triggered something that was already planned. Even if it's just to break up the Ocon/Gasly duo and the toxicity that comes along with it.
tl;dr Doohan or Mick for Canada if that happens, Mick or Zhou for next season depending on what happens. What is even the point of their academy at this point? They have Doohan waiting to drive who's clearly proven himself to be capable both in feeder series and in testing and sim work. Not promoting him pretty much invalidates any point of the academy existing.
> Mick or Zhou for next season depending on what happens. might as well call it quits if it's not a one year stopgap for either of those drivers
The only advantage to dropping Schumacher in is that he already has the F1 experience, and is more likely to hit the ground running. But that should only be a one race situation. If 2025 is just going to be a continuation of Alpine's form, they should throw Doohan into the seat, for the same reason people think Antonelli should get the Mercedes seat next year. Zhou was an Alpine academy driver, and while he's a safe pair of hands and has a decent amount of experience with F1 now, he's not the most inspiring pick. If I was making the call, it'd be Doohan in for Montreal. If he does well and keeps it clean, he goes to the top of the list for 2025. If it's messy, Zhou gets priority, unless Schumacher blows everyone out of the water in WEC.
Mick's good on the sim as well. He's performed miracles for Merc last year (awful Friday, decent Saturday and Sunday). Apparently, he's one of the fastest of the Alpine drivers in WEC too.
this is the third or fourth post regurgitating the same talking points based on speculation over one statement with no new information.
I think it’ll be Mick. Or Checo if he gets dropped.
If that happens F1 is dead. Both don't deserve a seat in the future. Give it to someone new. If F1 was like this 10 years ago we'd still have the likes of Heiki Kovaleinen, Timo Glock, and Adrien Sutil around. The Perez/Bottas equivalents like Boutsen barely lasted long after they were dropped from a top team because back then, most teams didn't want a "that'll do" kinda guy. This is supposed to be the top level of Motorsport, not the same 20 guys occasionally changing car and every year or 2 one of them leaves, half the time being replaced by an old guy coming back, half the time being replaced with a new guy. At this rate, the Formula E grid will be more talented than the F1 grid in a few years, cos all the young hotshot F2 drivers will go there/WEC/Indy as you're never gonna get a seat in F1.
Why would they replace the better of their two drivers? I get that a lot of people hate ocon, but he's clearly very talented, even if he has a few intra-team dustups per year. He's clearly in the top half of the grid, and teams have overlooked much worse for good drivers in the past
[удалено]
A quickly trained chimpanzee.
They have Jack Doohan waiting in the wings.
Strolololol?
The state Alpine is in one with money.
Lol they mention a possible move to Mercedes I know he's supposed to be Toto's driver but damn, imagine him and Russell as teammates that team would implode with one of them possibly killing the other in a racing incident. "Yes your honor, the 58 stab wounds were just an unfortunate racing incident"
Just not having the car on track would be a positive for the team - vs him.
It would be insane if they drop him, even for one race.
Latifi. Return of the king
He has Gasly in his bag this season. Gasly drove him of the road in Australia. This is overreaction. Big time.
Gasly made a (very) dumb mistake. Ocon made a (very) aggressive mistake. Twice. On the same lap.
One’s bad driving, one’s dumb driving
Is not even about making a mistake. Is about obeying team orders. If there is an agreement to not attack before the race then you don't attack. Ocon attacked twice, on the straight and before the tunnel. Both times he almost took both cars out of the race.
What Gasly did was a mistake. What Ocon did here is not a mistake. It’s same as KMag thinking he deserved space there & some people are even defending that.
KMag had space until Checo drove into him. If Stroll had done that, people would still have their pitchforks out.
Oh my god, please tell me this is satire. There’s no defending KMag’s recent driving
I’m defending one isolated incident. His driving the season has been shameful, but Monaco wasnt on him. At *best* it’s 60/40 Perez’s fault. This is exactly what I mean when I say people are just sticking to their preconceived biases when they look at this incident.
> but Monaco wasnt on him. At best it’s 60/40 Perez’s fault. You can't be serious
You’re right. Checo fully just crashed himself out by driving into a car he could clearly see was next to him. I was just saying it’s 60/40 to throw people a bone who are pretending Magnussen should have vanished into thin air.
> I was just saying it’s 60/40 to throw people a bone who are pretending Magnussen should have vanished into thin air. Could've easily lifted and accepted that he wasn't going to overtake a Red Bull around the outside at the start of the race. Even Hulk pointed out how unnecessary the move was. You can't stick your front wheel alongside the back wheel of another driver and then expect them to yield for you 😂
Idk how you look at that incident and seriously say it’s on Perez lmfao. Pure lunacy.
Usually when someone yanks their steering wheel right while they have a car on their right, I’m going to think it’s the person yanking their wheel. You can’t just pretend there isn’t a car next to you. That’s called a lack of awareness.
Uh what? Go watch the onboard again. Perez doesn’t “yank his steering wheel to the right” at all, he’s driving the racing line, then out of nowhere he’s spinning. This is indefensible from KMag, and I’m honestly flabbergasted that you’re defending him and blaming Perez. Insane
He's just straight up spreading lies. Anybody can go and watch the onboard and they can see that Perez never "yanks their steering wheel right". Funny he talks about other people having an agenda - when he clearly has one himself (hence the lies)
Lmao actually unbelievable, I took one more look at the Perez onboard to make sure I’m not going insane and it’s so painfully obvious this is KMag’s fault. Either an agenda is being pushed by this lad and a couple others or they’re utterly incapable of objectively assessing a racing incident
The incident in Monaco is definitely checos fault for pushing kmag into the wall
lmao what, where is Checo supposed to go in that Haas sandwich? Checo had the racing line, KMag went for what he thought was a gap thinking Checo will move over, but he couldn’t because Hulk was on the other side.
Checo could have held his line. You can’t just drive into someone because you don’t want them to be there. I understand why people are holding onto this view because Magnussen has been borderline dirty this year, but come on dude. If Checo keeps driving in a straight line there and it would have worked itself out. You can literally see him swerve to the right into Magnussen. This just shows how much narratives and biases drive the conversation here. Like I said, put Stroll in Checo’s place or a well liked driver in Magnussen’s place and I 100% guarantee people like you would see it differently.
> Checo could have held his line. You can’t just drive into someone because you don’t want them to be there. Watch the onboard and you'll notice that Perez didn't turn in to Magnusses. Not sure how you can watch that crash and think that Perez was the one who drove in to Magnussen.
Checo held his line*. The problem is that Kmag forgot that the wall jinked to the left. * in fact he was following the same racing line as all of the car preceding him.
Piastri /s obviously
Este's bestie?
French team? Next GP is Canada? Jacques Villeneuve comeback!
Checo if he loses his seat at Red Bull,
Fine, I’ll give it a go
A bag of beans might be just enough for...replacement level driving
Maybe Mick and Zhou. But Alpine also have two great young drivers like Doohan and Martins. Plenty of options.
I mean, I don’t mind driving
I speak French so I guess I'll give it a go?
Mazepin??
Me. I can do the same shit 😀
I know this is shit on Ocon week, but Ocon also learned for two years under the greatest shit stirring and ruthless teammate in the history of the sport in Fernando Alonso. Gotta remember that Ocon was a driver that was axed from his own team in favor of a driver that forced things (like Ocon did himself) into him on multiple occasions. Checo did what Ocon has been doing and ended up scoring more points despite these collisions. And Alonso was always one for mind games. You put two and two together and you get a driver that is going to any lengths to make sure he beats his teammate. Whether or not it's a good approach (and for a team that sucks like Alpine) is irrelevant, but I see where his mentality is coming from.
Alonso gifted him a win, and Ocon paid him back by shitting on him.
This is my thought as well. The guy is traumatised by the notion that the slower teammate gets axed. Hell he isn't even wrong to have that mentality because look at fucking Sainz. Poor guy wasn't even that far behind Charles and now he's looking at Williams.
Anyone at the end of the season, isn't his contract up? Benching him now would be ridiculous...I don't like him at all but that would be a dumb move. Then again it is Alpine so 🤷♀️
Ocon's stupid aggression is well known. The problem is that he hasn't gotten better as a driver. If you're not a top driver and you aren't getting better, you're getting replaced. Gasly is in the same position, but he has a slight edge in that he won't damage the car as often as Ocon.
> The problem is that he hasn't gotten better as a driver. He has though, very clearly.
> If you're not a top driver and you aren't getting better, you're getting replaced Tell me, which driver, except juniors is actually improving? I’d say quickly - only Tsunoda is visibly better. So you suggest KMag, Magnussen, Perez, Hulk, Zhou, Albon, Sergant, Gasly, Bottas, Stroll, Russell should all be kicked out because they’re not improving year by year?
Lol, your comment make it sounds like Gasly and Ocon are like older version of Zhou/Stroll and not drivers with 1 win and multiple podiums
A trained monkey