Esteban Ocon owned up to the opening lap clash in the Monaco Grand Prix with Alpine teammate Pierre Gasly, and for which he was sidelined after his car suffered terminal.
In the commotion of the first lap, Ocon got a run on Gasly as the pair exited Turn 7 and headed towards Portier. The former positioned himself on the inside of the corner but made contact with Gasly on the exit.
The clash launched Ocon’s A524 into the air and the car was heavily damaged upon its heavy landing, eliminating its driver from the race’s proceedings.
Shortly after, Ocon took to social media to comment on the incident for which he held himself fully responsible.
“Today’s incident was my fault, the gap was too small in the end and I apologise to the team on this one. Hoping for a deserved points-finish for the team today,” he wrote.
He later said: “It was a hard launch in the air and a hard landing, but I’ve had worse days on that side of things. I think on that side of things I’m okay.
“Obviously it’s an unfortunate incident to retire early in the race, after a long race that was going to go late on. A tough one.
“We tried to basically put the car back in the garage, so pulled out of the fast lane to try and repair what we could repair, but unfortunately we discovered too much damage sustained.”
Alpine team principal Bruno Famin was none too pleased with events and hinted at “consequences”.
“This kind of incident is quite sad,” he told Canal Plus. “Esteban’s attack on Gasly was exactly what we did not want to see and we will draw the consequences.”
The stewards also took a dim view on Ocon’s move, hitting the Frenchman with a 10-second time penalty which, following his DNF, became a five-place grid drop for next month’s Canadian Grand Prix.
“It was clear to us that the collision was caused solely by the overly ambitious overtaking attempt, from too far back, by car 31 [Ocon] and was therefore wholly to blame for the incident,” the officials stated.
“The baseline penalty for causing a collision in this season is a 10-second time penalty. This is what we imposed on car 31.
“However, given that car 31 did not finish the race, it will be converted to a drop of five grid positions for the next race in which the driver participates.”
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