Plenty of incidents took place in the first lap of the Monaco GP, aside from the major crash of Sergio Perez and Kevin Magnussen. Among them was the coming together of both Alpine cars, resulting in a penalty and a retirement for Esteban Ocon. After evaluating the incident, F1 expert Martin Brundle believes Ocon needs to change his behavior or risk seeing the end of his days in F1.
Quoted by RacingNews 365, Brundle criticized Esteban Ocon for his often unnecessary aggression. Having been teammates with him, both Fernando Alonso and Sergio Perez have had complaints about Ocon’s driving. Thus, Brundle feels if the 27-year-old doesn’t change his attitude, it will cost him “dearly.”
“It will cost Esteban [Ocon] dearly, because no top team, perhaps even no team, will encourage such mentality,” explained Brundle.
The famed Journalist added that the drivers in F1 represent hundreds of hard-working people and hundreds of millions in investments. Therefore, one cannot continue to keep “attacking” their teammates at the risk of a collision.
PIERRE GASLY – ESTEBAN OCON KAZASI!pic.twitter.com/hRkogOnIwx
— Tutkumuz F1 (@F1tutkumuz) May 26, 2024
Over the years, Esteban Ocon has had several incidents with multiple teammates, creating an infamous image for himself. Starting from Sergio Perez, the Frenchman was always on the offensive in trying to better his teammates, even if it meant taking them out of the race.
Hardly a teammate with whom Esteban Ocon hasn’t had a bust-up
Having debuted with Manor in 2016, Esteban Ocon soon made his way to Force India (2017) to partner Sergio Perez. While the partnership started on friendly terms, it soon took off its sweet veil and unleashed a fierce rivalry.
The 2017 Canadian Grand Prix opened the floodgates for a flurry of incidents between the two after Perez did not give Ocon the pass to try and chase Daniel Ricciardo. In the next race, Ocon shoved Perez into a wall at the Azerbaijan GP, retiring him from the race.
They made contact again in Hungary, that too, on several occasions. The behavior led to Force India even banning both drivers from racing each other for the rest of the season. Hostilities continued to haunt both drivers for the rest of their tenure together as well.
Over at Alpine, the #31 driver developed a rivalry with two-time world champion Fernando Alonso. Things were going well between the two as Alonso even helped Ocon keep Lewis Hamilton at bay to win his first-ever GP. However, Ocon refused to return the favor in the following race, resulting in tensions increasing between the two.
Now, with Pierre Gasly, Ocon has once again become the villain, posing a tough challenge for Bruno Famin. The Enstone-based team is now believed to be looking at options to restore parity between their drivers. The options reportedly range from a peace accord to Alpine benching Esteban Ocon for one or two races.
