Pierre Gasly was unhappy to be ordered to swap positions with Esteban Ocon on the final lap of the Japanese Grand Prix because he was faster than his Alpine teammate, but that argument was "not relevant" insists Ocon given the circumstances.
Ocon and Gasly were running P9 and P10 in the final tier of the race at Suzuka and were trying to reel in the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso up ahead.
In a bid to capitalize on Gasly's fresher tyres and faster pace, Alpine asked Ocon to wave his teammate through so he could attempt to chase down Alonso and succeed where Ocon had failed.
But Gasly also came up short in his efforts to overhaul the Spaniard, which compelled the Alpine pitwall to ask him to give the position back to Ocon on the fnal lap of the race, a request that infuriated Gasly.
"Wait, what the f***, mate? You’re kidding me," he told race engineer Karel Loos. "What are you saying? I was faster. I’m on fresher rubber. I would’ve overtaken him anyway."
Loos responded by saying that the matter would be addressed after the race.
"Swap around please," he said. "We don’t have to say anything now, we’ll discuss it after."
Angry, Gasly continued to dispute the call but eventually complied, signing off with a final unequivocal: "Thank you, complete joke".
Ocon defended Alpine's decision, not because he was the beneficiary of the call but because it followed a policy that has always been clear at the Enstone squad.
"I've been with the team for four years now, and the rule has always been that - I had it with Fernando [Alonso] - that if one driver swaps position, so in this instance, I gave the position to Pierre, he needs to get the position in front to keep the position, otherwise, you give the place back to your team-mate," Ocon explained.
"That's always what we've done, and if I'm on the other side, I would obviously do the same, but I prefer the fight to be on-track. I am more of an old-school guy and would never ask for the position to be switched.
"But I understand the team's point of view, which was trying to get more places, to get Fernando and get more points, but unfortunately we didn't get that.
"I think we maximised the potential because there wasn't much more on the table."
For Ocon, Gasly's claim that he was quicker and therefore deserved to keep the position wasn't "relevant".
"It's not really relevant, because you need to fight for your place on track and until we can be as fast as we want, if you don't make the move, you never know who is going to be prompted [to be asked to move aside]," he said.
"Before that, I was in front, and so obviously we will discuss that as a team to see what we could have done better, but if you look at Brazil in 2021 with Fernando, Sochi with Daniel [Ricciardo] it was the same.
"I gave the position to Daniel and to Fernando. It has always been a team order that I've known and I wasn't surprised."
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