Ocon relied on 'lift-and-coast' to avoid double DNF in Mexico

Esteban Ocon rued being forced to lift-and-coast in last Sunday's Mexican Grand Prix to manage the temperatures of his Renault engine to avoid the fate that befell Alpine teammate Fernando Alonso.

Alonso was running in the points at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez with just six laps to go when he was sidelined by an engine issue.

And while Ocon finished P8, the Frenchman's race was heavily impacted by a small water leak that forced him to monitor his engine's temperatures and to "lift-and-coast for quite a lot of the race".

• Read also: Alonso says latest Alpine failure 'cannot be bad luck'

"I couldn’t really attack to the maximum. A lot to review for us," said Ocon. "Hopefully we will come back stronger in the last two.

"The team said it was critical that I had to do a lot of seconds of lift-and-coast, and when you do so, obviously you don’t accelerate.

"So you lose a lot of lap time, especially on a track like that. We’ve managed, we finished the race, which is the most important. But we’ve lost some important points today as a team."

Indeed, Alpine lost four points to rival McLaren, with the papaya squad now standing just seven points behind the Enstone outfit as the battle for fourth in F1's Constructors' championship unfolds with two races to go.

Alonso vented his frustration after suffering his third engine related DNF in seven races. Once again, the Spaniard questioned why the issues always appeared to creep up on his side of the garage.

But Ocon pushed back on his teammate's  view, insisting that he has also suffered his fair share of troubles this season.

"I broke the gearbox in Imola, I broke the car in Silverstone, I [retired] in Singapore. I can count them on as well on my side. We’ve both had issues," commented the Frenchman.

"But we are happy with the strategy of the team to push the pace of the car in front of the reliability. That was always the aim of the team. Today was a was a bit unexpected, so something for us to understand.

"I’ve also changed six engines like him, obviously brought one today. We’re on the same number of engines."

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