Esteban Ocon has a new challenger.
Esteban Ocon and Alpine have been a fairly effective pair. Although the team has not put together a world-beating car in his time with them, Alpine has been able to fight at the front of the mid-pack for the past three seasons and Ocon has led the charge. However, despite winning the program its first race since being re-branded as Alpine, he has never been the clear #1 driver.
This is the fourteenth installment of our driver-by-driver preview of the 2023 Formula 1 season. This weekend, we will be covering Alpine. You can find the rest of our previewsA tumultuous relationship with former teammate Fernando Alonso ended when Alonso decided to leave for Aston Martin in 2023, but Ocon's time racing next to a comparable talent is hardly over.
Ocon had joined the Mercedes farm system before that GP3 championship season, but Mercedes had no open affiliated seats in F1 for 2016 and no need to see Ocon in Formula 2. They sent him to the DTM instead, where he ran half a season while making some test driver appearances for the then-Renault team. He finally joined the F1 grid as a driver after the 2016 Summer break, finishing the year out with Manor before earning a prestigious seat at what is now Aston Martin.
In theory, it sets up Alpine well for the future. In practice, it puts Gasly and Ocon into a battle to find out if either can establish themselves as a lead driver now before the team grows enough that the discussion is a problem. That battle comes with two big caveats, that Alpine would be focused on just one contender if it wound up in a championship hunt and that Alpine would be able to get into a championship hunt in the next few years at all, but it is worth considering.
Like Gasly, Ocon will have to find a way to work well alongside his new teammate now as they help develop the car and hope for shots to win races. He'll also have to keep an eye on the standings and fight to show that he is faster in qualifying and on race day. As we saw with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr. in 2021 and early 2022, a lead driver is more than just the driver who ends a season ahead in the championship standings.
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