Esteban Ocon will leave Alpine at the end of the 2024 season, a decision that the Enstone-based team announced just a week after his race-ending Monaco GP crash. With promises of “serious consequences” for the Frenchman in the immediate aftermath of the incident in the Principality, one question arises. Is Ocon’s Alpine exit connected to what happened in Monaco?
Sky Sports’ Craig Slater says no. “I’m told that this would have happened anyway,” he said in a recent segment.
Slater adds that the timing of the announcement coincides with Ocon’s incident in Monte Carlo, leading to the majority of the F1 community thinking that the Frenchman’s crash made Alpine fire him.
Team principal Bruno Famin was not happy with how Ocon nearly took Pierre Gasly out in Monaco with his ambitious lunge on the first lap. His fury gave rise to rumors of Ocon being benched as early as the Canadian GP next weekend.
The 27-year-old was on the receiving end of a huge backlash on social media for the same. He also had to release a statement, saying that the negative comments about his teamwork ability hurt him immensely. The first cracks in his relationship with Alpine started appearing thereafter.
Alpine’s reported lack of support for Esteban Ocon
Ocon joined Alpine (then Renault) in 2020 and became a race winner with the team in Hungary 2021. But this season, his relationship began to get strained with the Alpine bosses.
Usually, when drivers or entities within F1 face online abuse, a team puts out a statement in support of them. Alpine, however, refrained from doing so. Instead, they replied under Ocon’s post with a few blue heart emojis, drawing in criticisms from the entire F1 community.
BWT Alpine F1 Team and I have agreed together to part ways at the end of the 2024 F1 season.
The Enstone-Viry family has played a significant part in my life, dating back to my Lotus junior programme days. I feel incredibly lucky and privileged to have achieved the things I did… pic.twitter.com/crzJwfQRpx
— Esteban Ocon (@OconEsteban) June 3, 2024
The fact that Ocon’s exit became official just days after the aforementioned incident makes it even more likely that the Frenchman didn’t have a lot of support within the team. The Enstone outfit have been in a tricky situation from a performance perspective.
As a result, their Monaco GP prospects of scoring a points finish was a golden opportunity. However, Ocon’s maneuver could have ruined it and thus Famin and Alpine’s strict demeanor makes sense.
Still, it looks like the Monaco incident has only as a stimulus to the #31 driver’s exit. His teammate Pierre Gasly will most likely continue with his stint, but who Alpine will sign remains to be seen. Ocon too, revealed that his future plans will be revealed in due course.
