‘We took every single wrong decision’ – Ocon says ‘there’s nothing to learn’ from difficult Silverstone weekend for Alpine

Esteban Ocon gave a damning assessment of Alpine’s weekend at the British Grand Prix, with the Frenchman stating that the squad took “every single wrong decision” en route to his final result of P16.

Having lined up in 18th on the grid following a difficult qualifying, Ocon was one of the first to make the switch to intermediate tyres amid changing conditions in the early stages of the race. However, this seemed to backfire and the 27-year-old soon returned to the pits to put the slicks back on.

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Ocon’s day did not improve much from there and he was left to rue what had been an all-round tough few days for the team.

“There was no punt that we took,” he reflected on the tyre call. “We basically took every single wrong decision since the beginning of the weekend on anything that it can be – on the car, on the strategy, on everything.

“It’s been a very difficult one from start to finish, there’s nothing to learn about this weekend. We just need to focus on the next one and turn the page on this one.”

The event marked quite a change in fortunes for Alpine following their upturn of form at recent race weekends. Asked why things appeared to have gone so wrong at Silverstone, Ocon – who will leave the team at the end of the season – responded: “Not much to comment on that.

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“I can’t give you an answer but, yeah, when the track was suited for slicks we were on the inters, when the track was suited for inters we were on the slicks. When the track was suited for low downforce, we were on the high, and many more unfortunately. Not much to take away unfortunately.”

On the other side of the garage, the weekend was also a challenging one for Pierre Gasly. The French driver was already set to start from the back due to an engine penalty, but his race was over before it started when he returned to the pit lane at the end of the formation lap owing to a gearbox problem.

Given the potential opportunities that mixed weather conditions like those seen at Silverstone can bring, Gasly acknowledged that it was disappointing to not be able to participate.

“We knew our weekend would start on Sunday – the plan for the weekend was to take this engine penalty and the battery change, so it was compromised from the first place,” the 28-year-old reflected afterwards.

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“But on a day like today when the rain is around, you always have hopes that you can get something out of it. Definitely not an ideal [situation], just got to understand and hopefully make sure that we don’t suffer this issue anymore.”

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