F1 News: Esteban Ocon is seen by Alpine as capable of taking over the role of Fernando Alonso, who opted to move to Aston Martin, as team principal from next season.
Alpine manager Otmar Szafnauer said Esteban Ocon’s only weakness was that it took too long to find the maximum when the new race weekend started. For this reason, he hopes the young Frenchman can adapt to the track faster. Remembering this will make it easier for him to get the best results.
So far Alpine has not decided who is the right driver to replace Fernando Alonso. They initially announced that they would partner Ocon with Oscar Piastri, but the young Aussie denied signing a contract.
The team continues to seek other drivers, including the name of Nico Hulkeberg who has experience in Formula 1 in the list of new companions of Ocon.
Szafnauer said the 25-year-old has proven himself teaming up with Sergio Perez at Force India/Racing Point in 2017 and 2018. That means he has no problem being paired with anyone.
“Esteban has a lot of talent. I worked with him at Force India and that’s when Sergio Perez became his teammate,” Szafnauer said as quoted by Motorsport.com.
“He’s as quick as Sergio and challenges Sergio hard. If you remember those days, they were always together on the grid. Sometimes they even meet in races! And we’ll see what Sergio is capable of.”
“With Fernando too, although Fernando had the skill and the talent to do very fast laps. He needed three or four laps and he was at 99%, or 99.9%, and that extra 0.1% came with a few tricks.”
“If you know what I mean, Esteban needs a bit more time to get the most out of the car,” he added.
“But in the end, on Saturday and Sunday, he was in the front row. So he needed to learn a bit to get there a bit faster. But we are working with him on that.”
“After that, can he lead the team? He is definitely getting better and better. He recorded a grand prix victory. He scored some good points for us this year. And he will learn a lot more as we welcome him in next year,” the 57-year-old said.
Esteban Ocon has now become a much better person with Alpine after being sidelined for a season failing to find a team in Formula 1.
Tags: Alpine, Esteban Ocon, Fernando Alonso, F1 2022
Published by Ligaolahraga.com at https://www.ligaolahraga.com/f1/alpine-planning-tunjuk-esteban-ocon-as-leader-team
