Esteban Ocon: “It was a tough race today”

Esteban Ocon had his best qualifying of 2021, but unfortunately could not hold the position on race day Spanish Grand Prix. The driver of the Alpine F1 Team qualified for a promising fifth place and thus prevailed over both of them McLaren F1 Team Driver and the Scuderia Ferrari of Carlos Sainz Jr..

On the coming race day he was unable to maintain his form and lost two places on the first lap. Later in the race, the teams realized that the race might turn into a two-stop race as the tires were badly damaged. While the contestants opted for a second pit stop, Ocon stayed outside with the tires sustaining to the end, where he crossed the finish line in ninth place and took two points home for the team.

Ocon said: “It was a tough race today. We have a couple of things to check as we weren’t as fast in the race as the Ferraris or the McLarens. On the positive side, we didn’t score any points here last year and have two of them this year.

“It’s not ideal after qualifying, but we’ll take it and move on to the next race. We have more work to do at race pace and, as always, some things to discuss to improve. We’ll see how we’re doing in Monaco. It’s great that we are going back and we go there with some motivation to get a better result. ”

Alonso’s unhappy homecoming

Fernando Alonso forgot a home Grand Prix. After both drivers made Q3 in qualifying, it looked like a colon was as good as in the pocket for the team.

From tenth place onwards, Alonso also opted for the one-stop strategy, but as the race continued, the Spaniard crashed onto the starting grid. He eventually had to pit a second time to ride softs on lap 61 and cross the line a few laps later on a less than impressive seventeenth.

“We didn’t want to finish there today, but I think the weekend was generally positive. We’ve had some good performances in the car and we’re definitely going in the right direction. We were fast in Portugal, but we didn’t know if it was specific for this track. Our progress over the weekend shows that we are in a good place. “Said Alonso.

“We had some fun battles today and I enjoyed the race, but in the end we just couldn’t hold on with the medium tires. We had to try something different and it didn’t work out. We will be back in Monaco and have fun there. ”