Esteban Ocon reveals how his family played a pivotal role in Pierre Gasly’s early racing career as the Frenchman was earlier interested in football.
Gasly has emerged as a potential candidate for Alpine if Red Bull is willing to work out a deal to release him from AlphaTauri, having already confirmed him for next season.
Inevitably, the prospect of Gasly and Ocon teaming up at a French-owned team has piqued fans and F1 insiders as they are known to have a rivalry that dates back to their childhood karting days.
Ocon had previously revealed that his parents played an instrumental role in Gasly getting his first taste of racing as a kid in a go-kart.
“When he was very young, maybe seven or eight, my parents were friends together with his parents,” The Évreux born explained in 2017, before Gasly’s Formula One debut.
“I was driving go-karts one day, and he was there playing football. So my dad said, ‘Why don’t you try Esteban’s go-kart?’ And after that, he quit football! So, from the beginning of my career, we’ve known each other basically.”
Ocon had once even joked that he should be given a bonus because he initially helped Gasly launch his career—having shared the same birth year and being born in the same region of France. Naturally, their junior careers coincided, and they often ran into one another at tournaments.
“[We were] almost like brothers because honestly, at the time when you’re young, you need to drive all the time… and all the time together. I think in the end it was really good.” Gasly mentioned in Beyond The Grid podcast.
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The beginning of the rivalry between Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon
The French pair were karting rivals earlier in their careers, but as their careers progressed in parallel, they fell out. Gasly claims the competition between them became too fierce for them to stay friends.
“I started to beat him, and he didn’t like it so we’re not friends anymore,”. The 26-year-old previously explained. The two began to drift apart towards the end of their time in karting. Then the relationship worsened when they started to fight for the titles.
Like the National Championship and the European Championship. Gasly recalls that the relationship started going downhill in 2009 when the Bridgestone Cup was at stake.
He tried to overtake Ocon on the last corner of the final lap, fighting for P3. But the two made contact in the process, which resulted in Ocon finishing fourth with Gasly ahead of him.
He marked this as the point when their friendship soured—followed by another incident the next year, where the two collided. “We’ve spent a lot of time together, but it got to a point where he got a bit too upset, and it wasn’t so nice anymore. So, we kind of stopped [socializing].”
The Rouen-born says that although they still talk to each other, it is not about motorsport. “If we don’t talk about racing it’s fine,” he said. “We can spend time together; we respect each other, it doesn’t go further than that.”
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