Ocon happy to 'save Alpine's weekend', in a way

Esteban Ocon believes his run to P8 in last weekend's Belgian Grand Prix brought a bit of comfort to Alpine in the midst of the team's off-track turmoil at Spa.

On Friday, the Enstone squad lobbed a bombshell in the paddock when it announced that it had parted ways with team principal Otmar Szafnauer and sporting director Alan Permane, not to mention CTO Pat Fry's move to Williams.

The bizarre timing of the news put Alpine under the spotlight for all the wrong reasons, right in the middle of a Grand Prix weekend, challenging the team's focus on the job at hand.

Proving that point, qualifying on Friday afternoon yielded a lowly P15 on the grid for Ocon while teammate Pierre Gasly was 12th.

But a strong start on Sunday and an equally robust for few laps swiftly, followed by an early switch from the soft to the medium tyre, put Ocon on the fringe of the top ten.

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After reverting to the softs on his second pit stop on lap 25 of 44, he got the measure of both AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda and Aston Martin's Lance Stroll, which set up a closing-stage battle with McLaren's Lando Norris.

The pair ran nose to tail but Ocon came up short against the Briton, but he reckoned that one more lap would have allowed him to get the job done.

"One more lap, one more lap," he bemoaned. "That’s what Lando could have said for many occasions when we raced together.

"I enjoy the last lap battles with him all the time, it always seems to happen together. But not this time, unfortunately."

Ocon hoped that his solid drive into the points and multiple battles had hopefully delivered some solace for his team after the weekend's off-track drama.

"Glad we saved our weekend in a way," he said. "Friday, Saturday didn’t go to plan, we didn’t put everything together.

"But clearly that race, we could show the real pace of the car, and how it was working, and yeah, had some really good battles out there."

Ocon speculated on what his performance would have been had Spa's manic weather remained dry.

"What if it was a dry weekend on the rest? "Because I think we had clearly that pace in the race," he said.

"It’s very encouraging that each time we bring an update, the car seems to take a step forward.

"Clearly, I dedicate that one to Viry and Enstone, because it’s really encouraging what we bring to the track really makes a step forward."

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