Ocon leads the way as Alpine repasses Mclaren
Esteban Ocon’s superb defence against Lewis Hamilton netted Alpine’s best result of 2022 and that, combined with Fernando Alonso’s battling drive to seventh, meant the blue-and-pink team moved back ahead of Mclaren in the fight for fourth in the constructors’ championship.
Just a week after Alpine’s double retirement in Singapore meant Mclaren had climbed in front in that constructors’ scrap, Ocon took the A522’s upgraded floor, introduced in Singapore, to fifth on the Suzuka grid. Gaining confidence with every dry-conditions lap on Saturday, he beat the Mercedes pair and Alonso, and was only headed by the Red Bull and Ferrari drivers.
After holding his place ahead of Hamilton at the first start and the rolling restart, Ocon then defied one of Formula 1’s greatest wet-weather drivers with fine car control and positioning to prevent the Mercedes from mounting a pass. He finished fourth after gaining a place from Carlos Sainz’s first-lap crash, and this topped Ocon’s previous best result of 2022: fifth in Hungary.
“I was looking more in the back [into my mirrors] than in the front in that race,” said Ocon. “We knew it was going to be tough to keep the Mercs behind. I think it was a matter of time until we could really show what the car was capable of. And we were able to do that this weekend in general. We were fast in all conditions.”
At Mclaren, which is now 13 points behind Alpine in the constructors’ table, Lando Norris scored the final point just in front of team-mate Daniel Ricciardo. Being the third driver to take inters helped the Briton gain back the places he lost due to wheelspin and a Turn 1 exit slide at the standing start, but he couldn’t overcome the Williams of Nicholas Latifi late on.
Was that a champion’s drive from Verstappen? I mean, to put 25 seconds on Charles in 20-odd laps was a massive performance. So, [I’m] absolutely delighted with the outcome. Max is a truly deserving champion.
How did he keep his tyres in shape with such strong pace? There’s a huge amount going on. The circuit actually started to dry up. And these tyres don’t like the energy. Particularly in the first sector, you can do an awful lot of damage to them. Max just controlled the slip, controlled the temperature, looked after those tyres. And, in the end, had an awful lot in hand.
What about his slower start against Leclerc?
We had a horrible start, he got quite a lot of wheelspin. But then he went for the old karting line around the outside. And he was fully committed. I talked to him in the [red flag] break and he said, ‘Look, I was going for it.’ Charles gave him enough space and he made the move stick. It was great racing, those first two corners.
Can you enjoy this title win more than 2021?
To do it with four races remaining, it’s truly a remarkable performance. Max has been on another planet this year. He has dominated this championship, driven with such maturity, such conviction. [That was] far less controversial than the last race in Abu Dhabi, which was a titanic battle last year.
When did you find out he was champion?
When Jenson Button announced him as a world champion up [on the podium]. We were debating on the pitwall, ‘Do we pit him, did we have enough of a window [for the fastest lap bonus point]?’ But then all the things that can go wrong, you think why take a risk for that one point here? We [also] felt that was no assurance that Checo was going to make the move on Charles. So, the expectation at the pitwall was we’ve got one point to go and get in Austin. But, as it transpired, we got more than enough points and didn’t need the fastest lap.