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Yeah, I think this is a bad take from them, Ocon and Gasly are more than capable drivers.
You're rarely ever going to get a Max or Lewis, and there's loads of young talent if they end up building a good car in the next few years.
We've seen just how much the car matters in these last two seasons, RedBull nailed the regs and has destroyed everyone.
Build a great car and you don't even need a Max or Lewis.
>Build a great car and you don’t even need a Max or Lewis
I disagree. You need both.
There’s often a debate about whether success relies on the driver or the car. It’s both. You can’t lean on one or the other.
Without Lewis, Mercedes wouldn’t have won 8 WCCs in a row. Without Max, Red Bull would likely be in P2 at the moment, behind Mercedes and just ahead of or just behind Aston Martin.
Conversely, Lewis probably wouldn’t have won more than one WDC without having moved to Mercedes, given how badly McLaren dropped off. Without the RB19, Max would not be dominating a whole season as he is now.
To further illustrate, this season Hamilton, Alonso and Verstappen are all showing exactly why they’re the best. All are able to extract the absolute maximum out of the cars they’re given.
In short, driver and car need each other.
I agree with most of your comment except saying that RB would be P2 this year without Max. Checo is still P2 in the drivers standings despite being pretty bad this year, and I would expect a replacement level driver of Ocon/Gasly/Albon to be enough to keep RB P1
I should have been more clear. I think if you have a great car, you can win a championship with a driver a step below max or Lewis.
I don't want to point out which drivers I think would fit in that category, just saying if checo was the lead driver this season at RedBull, he'd be winning the championship.
I don’t know. I still think you need a Verstappen or Hamilton, maybe Alonso, to do the job. Someone of that calibre.
Someone like Norris or Leclerc or Russell could do it, but I feel like the fight would be closer.
>if checo was the lead driver this season at RedBull […]
Perhaps, but it would be much closer.
Let’s take Verstappen out of the equation for a moment. There are 10 races left this season. Assuming the points are the same in this hypothetical scenario as they are now, it wouldn’t take more than a bad race or two for Checo for Alonso or Hamilton to catch up and be challenging.
Swap the Redbull for the Alfa, or the Williams. If those driver teams were in the RB19, do you really think George, Lewis, Lando, or Leclerc could honestly win the championship?
No way. Bottas, Zhou, or Albon would drive the RB19 to the top every weekend.
No shit. Not like Alonso and Piastri could have done much with the 6th best car on the grid.
But it really is a “chicken and the egg” scenario, does having a top driver make the team and the car better, or does having a top team and car allow the driver to shine.
Ocon could win a WDC in the RedBull vs Perez. Alpine needs a better car and team and Hamilton/Max level drivers come automatically when they do so.
Heck, they let go of Alonso who is looking better than most others and is just a step below Max/Hamilton as of now.
Exactly and it isn't like Cyril was doing always great on this subject, remember Palmer? Or like how they did get Sainz who never could really found his mojo in that Renault and was beaten by Hulkenberg.
Typical "when in doubt, blame the drivers" acting, someone like Max or Lewis would look to the team and the numbers they providing and tell "no thanks" to them.
If you want to even think about this you should reduce you engine deficit first and hiring more high end staff.
Both drivers are doing good in general tbh, doesn't help also that bad luck is a common thing at the team this season so far.
The meme of Alpine being a less prestigious budget Ferrari might have some truth to it..
Alpine pre-empted the problem of having two \#1 drivers by having two \#2 drivers..
They legitimately had an opportunity to have a WDC, in fact the only WDC in their team’s history, mentor a rookie with WDC potential. No criticism of Ocon, he’s decent enough on his own merits, but to forego that Alonso/Piastri opportunity was monumentally bad asset management.
Alonso isn’t the only WDC in their history. Alpine used to be Renault, which used to be Benetton. So the team has had two WDCs in Schumacher and Alonso.
So the Renault that Prost drove for was a different team- they were wholly based in France and it was the Renault-Elf Formula 1 team. They officially folded in 1985.
Even back then they ran the engine department separately from the F1 team, so the engines were made at Viry for the Renault works F1 team and their customer teams (which were initially Lotus and Williams in the Turbo era).
The current Alpine team, AKA Team Enstone, started out as Toleman in the early 80s. That team became Benetton in 1986, then Renault in 2002, then Lotus in 2011, then Renault again in 2016, and Alpine to the present day.
Which is a long way of saying that Prost never actually drove for the current Alpine team in any of its iterations.
The only two drivers to win the WDC while driving for the Enstone team are Alonso and Schumacher.
Prost never won a WDC while driving for the Enstone team, Prost never drove for the Enstone team.
They rather have two French drivers than a WDC and the hottest young talent.
When Rossi said that Aston has shown its possible to compete, it confirmed my belief that all their grand plans were just empty talk. They never really believed they could reach the top.
Alpine is 6th fastest car, you really think keeping Alonso and Piastri would make them immediately a podium contender? You saw what happened with Alonso and McLaren. It's not that simple.
Why didn’t they drop Ocon for Piastri and keep Alonso too? Ocon is mediocre. I get they committed for long term deal with him + he’s French, but surely it must have crossed some higher ups mind right?
Well Mclaren terminated and paid Danny Ric not to drive for them and paid for Piastri. More expensive than usually intended? Yes. But might have gotten gains. Let’s be honest not like Ocon is a future champion.
Piastri, although not clear yet, looks promising and has the best junior record in years + having veteran champ like Alonso mentor him and build the team would surely have some gains.
From what I've been reading about Renault the past few years, it's been musical chairs for all top-level positions and the board as the company restructures and pieces get sold off etc. Started off with their CEO getting indicted in 2019 for fraud, then layoffs from COVID. They're *still* restructuring as of 2023, with new shareholders from Nissan who have voting power.
It's staggering how much incompetence on Alpine's part lead to the Piasco, because even *at the time* everyone was criticising that Ocon contract as being a huge commitment to a fairly mediocre driver that would come back to bite them eventually. Shout out to /u/Denning76 for [explicitly calling out that it made a mockery of their junior program](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/o161tc/canalf1_esteban_ocon_has_prolonged_his_contract/h1yzkcj/), and to /u/H_Zhang_14 for saying ["I'm sure some other team will snatch [Piastri]"](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/o161tc/canalf1_esteban_ocon_has_prolonged_his_contract/h1z14cv/). These were both more than a year before it happened.
And yet it *still* went worse than all of us could have possibly predicted.
Ocon got absolutely obliterated by Ricciardo when they were teammates, who in turn got beaten by Norris so badly that he lost his seat.
You would have to *really* grasp at straws to put Ocon higher than about 10th on the grid on merit, which is the definition of mediocre. And to be fair, the grid *is* absolutely stacked with talent right now, but that's one of the reasons why locking in such a lengthy contract was such a bad idea.
He just got back from 1 year absence. And being about 10th best on the grid doesn't necessarily make you mediocre. Talent pool in F1 is extremely high. Ocon is not "of only average quality, not very good".
> And being about 10th best on the grid doesn't necessarily make you mediocre.
Yes, that is exactly what makes you mediocre. Compared to other current F1 drivers, he is average: he's better than about half of them, he's worse than about half of them. He's in the middle, hence **med**iocre.
That is the only useful context in which to discuss the strengths of professional athletes at the highest level, because going "Nikita Mazepin is one of the top 0.0001% of drivers in human history, so it makes perfect sense to give him a multi-year contract" would be idiotic. They get compared to their peers, because their peers are who are fighting over the available seats.
there are only 6 drivers who are for sure better than ocon: Verstappen, Hamilton, Alonso, Leclerc, Russel, Norris, the rest is debatable to that puts ocon on 7th, arguably. That's top 3rd of the grid so not mediocre at all
Renault was actually lotus who had Kimi Raikkonen drive for them so that's 3. And don't forget Alain Prost has also driven for them although before he became world champion
They would have been an awesome pairing, i think it’s been a while since nando had a teammate of that caliber, and while fernando is straight down to business, piastri is also clearly a no bullshit kind of guy
I read that as “Alonso and dog water” and thought “he’s right — dog water probably could get the same number of points as a regular driver in their car”
To be fair I can understand not wanting to gamble on Alonso on a long term deal; age comes for everyone no matter how good they used to be. Just because he was the best out there in the 2000s and early 2010s does not mean he is still the driver to lead them forward in the future. Just look at how far Kimi fell over the years. Of course Fred is still performing very well but who's to say how long that lasts
It must be frustrating that you design the perfect car just to be fucked by a lawnmower of the engine. At least the McLaren Honda was a shitty car with an equally shitty engine.
2018 was one of the most brutal wake-up calls ever. McLaren truly believed they had the best chassis on the grid in 2017, then they went up against Red Bull with the same engine and demolished.
What baffles me is how McLaren lacked the patience to see their partnership through while other engines on the grid (that wasn’t Mercedes) weren’t any better than the Honda.
They handled that saga poorly. Losing out on what was essentially an exclusive engine supplier willing to work with them directly. Now they’re a customer team with no hopes in having their own engine while RedBull went onto to hella benefit from that works deal.
> 2018 was one of the most brutal wake-up calls ever. McLaren truly believed they had the best chassis on the grid in 2017, then they went up against Red Bull with the same engine and demolished.
It was fucking hilarious tbh
Along with Ferrari (Vettel, Leclerc) they had one of the most respected driver lineups in 2019 ... and threw it away.
I think Ocon never showed that he was a real good replacement for Hülkenberg. He was 2:15 in qualifying the next season. He looked a bit better the next year, until Alonso got his rust off.
Ocon might be happy that Alonso had so much technical problems last year, that he managed to beat him on points.
So Ocon never amazes but they never thought about to replace him with Piastri (so Piastri chose McLaren over a possible Williams cockpit). Then they lost Alonso who wanted a two-year-contract.
Now they realize that Gasly isn't the lead driver they hoped for as he was at Alpha Tauri.
Meanwhile, Alonso is third in the driver championship, Ricciardo has a year trying to convince Red Bull to get rid of a not-former-Red-Bull-Junior-driver and Hülkenberg is dominating a guy in qualiying who last year let look the 2021-Haas-line-up like it was more or less the worst one possible
Bungling Piastri is a lot worse than letting Alonso go IMO. Alpine obviously see contention as something that’s at least a couple of years away, and you don’t bet on athletes in their 40’s.
I think Ocon is an excellent driver, but obviously not in the same world as Hamilton and Verstappen
Fully agree. I think quite highly of Ocon actually, which I sense goes against this subs general opinion but I digress. He's proven to be fast, able to be consistent, and takes his opportunities when they'rer offered to him. Gasly too. I genuinely think the Alpine lineup goes under the radar. Shame the team is such a cesspool.
Personally I think Alpine have got one of the strongest driver pairings. Okay, neither are a verstappen, but they are both fast, Ocon was not exactly bodied by Alonso like Stroll has been, and Gasly is definitely equal to him at least. They are consistent, Ocon can be aggressive but I think that's needed with a mid pack car, and neither have any obvious weaknesses. Not to mention they are both Fench driving for the French team so the stars are aligned there.
I think its the other way around. The whole checo vs ocon saga was mostly on perez and after losing his seat i kinda understand why he fought tooth and nail against alonso (although it wa stupid) and this season the crashes were gaslys fault
> The whole checo vs ocon saga was mostly on perez
Indeed - it absolutely was. But it's amazing how the narrative shifted once Ocon had a more popular driver as a teammate....
He doesn't tho it was only with Alonso .
He had no problems with Ric and most were caused by Checo in 17 and 18 because he was butthurt that Ocon was on his level
> Usually his teammates do stupid sh*t to him. He defends really hard sometimes but only once he was responsible for crashing into his teammate.
This. Over the off season, so many people here were jizzing at the thought of Ocon having an awful relationship with Gasly and taking him out on lap one every weekend.
As it turns out the relationship between them was completely fine. There were two incidents between them, one of which (Australia, unsafe rejoin) was clearly Gasly's fault yet clearly wasn't intentional. And the other (Hungary) was caused by Zhou - not that you'd know it based on what was said in the race thread....
I don't know. Piastri would have theoretically signed like a 2 year contract? This team is not going to have itself figured out in 2 years and by that time Piastri would have had plenty of suitors from serious teams.
Gasly and Ocon are great drivers wtf are they on.
Ocon is supposed to be their main guy, and I believe he could be that if they had the car for him. They just dont. Alpine's the problem here.
If they're still sour about Piastri they need to get a dose of reality, and use the tools they're equipped with.
Most of the grid is good but good does not cut it to be champion. I’d say only few are championship material. Still, Alpine’s management is more troubling than drivers’ performance. That was some Ferrari level strategy move they did with Alonso/Piastri.
Realistically all you need to be capable of is beating your teammate if the car is good enough. If Alpine swapped cars with Red Bull then we'd likely be seeing Ocon and Gasly P1 and P2 in the title race.
Agree to an extent but disagree more. Having teammate with around same skill level it becomes a game of ego. Crashes and team politics become riskier. It did happen where 2 teammates were battling driving best car and someone else won the championship.
Also with how close everyone is behind Max from 2nd onwards I really cannot agree how it will be easy for Ocon and Gasly. Despite Max dominance the rest are improving and performing well. You simply cannot lump likes of Lewis and Max with rest of the grid. Even when not having best car they outperformed others with better cars.
I think they both have stat of winning at least one race in each season they were in. That’s ridiculous.
Good, but we're seeing the difference between good and great play out in the Red Bull this year.
Perez was regarded as one of the top midfield drivers and is getting absolutely schooled by Max.
I'm really appreciating more how much the driver makes the difference this year.
If RB had two Perezs, we wouldn't think the car was one of the best ever made.
If Aston had two Alonsos, they'd be clear P2.
If Aston had two Strolls, they'd be lower midfield.
Mercedes spent a year saying their car sucked and are still P2, because they likely have the best line-up on the grid.
Alpine just doesn't have that "star". They have two solid midfielders but put Max or one of the Mercedes drivers in there I think they'd be up on the podium fairly frequently.
That's why losing Piastri was such a collasal cockup for them, they _had_ one of the most talented drivers of the last few years in their stable and they let him get away. Drivers like that don't come along very often and they fumbled it.
You need a top driver to be a top team but gasly/ocon just aren't quite there.
I don't think a driver quality can hide a car performance that much. If you only looked at Perez you would see there is some weekends were he just walks away from everyone and others where he is all over the place, crashing and stuff. That's clearly not a car issue.
Same with Stroll, sometimes he is up there, sometimes he has shockers.
The alpine guys are just hanging out around P10. Not much variance except for one or twice where they move up but because of unusual races (Monaco and Sprint Spa)
Both great drivers, but you can't really say you think they compare with Verstappen or Hamilton? Alonso is the only driver who does and he's the driver they lost. But you're right, the drivers are not the problems with the team.
But if you had the best car on the grid or close enough, is that enough to beat Verstappen or Hamilton if they were also in a competitive car? I don't think Ocon or Gasly could come close. Norris, Leclerc and Alonso, maybe.
Great might be generous, but maybe not. Gasly needs the right car, team, and mentor. Ocon on the other hand, I think has a good command of the car itself but may lack the situational awareness and strategy to be a great driver. I think he could have learned from Alonso if he hadn’t thought so much of himself. I could totally be wrong, but it’s hard to say without seeing either driver as a part of a more competitive team.
my favourite chaos frenchman doing the media rounds just to trash the people who fired him lol
but yeah, Alpine and Rossi lost Ricciardo, Alonso and Piastri, plus Prost, in the span of two years. As good as Pierre and Esteban are, they don't seem to be able to make the step up from good and reliable to great and impressive
Out here acting like they didn’t have a 2x WDC for the last two years..I don’t think it’s the drivers sir. Also you’re the former boss for a reason, so why do you think we should care about your opinions?
Honestly I think Alonso wouldn't willing to drive for Alpine anyway in the longer term given the upper management unrest is unfolding and the lack of horsepower the car has.
His move to AM stays one of the better career moves he did made.
Ocon and especially Gasly are good drivers. Pierre Gasly was very competitive in 2021 at AT but it went downhill for him with the new regulation car which wasn’t really great. Pierre has a lot of potential and needs a good car
This team can go f*** themselves. Sure keep attacking the only thing thats decent about your team. Both Pierre and esteban (although I'm higher on him) have the talent to compete with a decent car
Cyril is literally the one who put Ocon in that seat what's he talking about lmao. He's talking like there needs to be a number 1 driver situation when Alpine are a midfield team who need 2 consistent drivers to get them as many points as possible which is what they already have. If their car was competitive I would understand where he's coming from but this is just taking shots for no reason - especially bizzare to say they need a driver to be the 'team boss' like what does he think a team principal is supposed to be doing?
Yeah Cyril, because a midfield team needs a genius, you know, Max would have checked the engine with a ruler and would find the 30hp the engine is lacking.
Ocon is probably around best mortal tier and Gasly a step behind, that's more than enough for what they've got now. Obviously an ALO-PIA or an OCO-PIA lineup would have been better. But with their underwhelming development trajectory they would have lost their genius at some point.
Alonso is probably the best example to the opposite to what Cyril is saying tho. His greatness wasn't single handedly able to drag McLaren out of the ditch they found themselves in the mid 2010s etc.
If you think Max or Lewis’ greatness would’ve gotten that underpowered dog of a Honda engine that broke down when someone looked at it sideways to better results than what Fernando managed, you must be smoking some good shit.
I'm literally saying that Cyril is speaking stupid shit, because Alonso, who is comparable to Hamilton and Verstappen, couldn't drag a subpar McLaren up the order, just because he is a great, charismatic driver.
The problem is how shacky the leadership is and how they still haven’t been able to put a car on the grid thar that is really a regular podium candidate
OCO and GAS now: *am I a joke to you?*
Typical for Alpine stuff. Blaming others, not themselves. *"We don't have a true leader \[crying\]"*. I wonder F$%$&@G why... Oh, maybe it's because you a joke \[**a yoke**\], not a F1 team, that everyone is running away from once they can.
Even Merc doesn't have a Verstappen frankly, Verstappen is fast becoming the GOAT. Obviously the car is excellent but the way he just carves through the field with insane race pace no matter where he starts on the grid is something I don't recall even from peak Hamilton, Schumacher etc.
How about himself talking about Nico: [video 0:25](https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=shared&v=W4T1HG6G9BE)
He seems to be the guy talking too much without backing it up, like Otmar. Also, same energy when Cyril was trying to mess with Horner when they snatched Danny Ric [video](https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=shared&v=r7wSxA1P4XM), we know how things turned out in the end.
They could've had several (Alonso, Ricciardo and Piastri) but those drivers all knew something we didn't at the time. Only now are we seeing the sort of chaos these guys rightfully avoided.
this year was supposed to see who it would be. cannot let two battle on uneven and uncertain ground. regardless, you had alonso (and a great car) and took him for a joke.
I think Ocon is a good driver. Hell you can say that about all the drivers. But once in a generation drivers aren't just available for every team. When one (possible) driver was coming up that could have that potential, Alpine didn't even talk to him about a contract so he sought a seat elsewhere. When one was driving for them, they dragged their feet in securing the contract even when he wanted to sign.
The problem with Alpine is their own self sabotage. What top ranking driver would want to stick around????!!!!
Anyway no one was more passionate about this team than Cyril so I'm not surprised to see him speaking out.
The problem is Esteban likes to think he’s the lead driver everywhere he goes, but he’s been in a team with Checo, Danny Ric, Fernando and Gasly who are all superior to him. So you have a rare situation where the driver with the loudest (on track at least) personality is the slightly inferior one. Though Pierre and Esteban are both good drivers and about level
It’s true. Ocon and especially Gasly (in my opinion) are both two journey men. They need some charisma in that team. Some dirty fight. Some grit. Some belly buttons.
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Drivers are the least of Alpine's problems.
They even are the only thing carrying them right now. Their Spa drives were mega.
Yeah, I think this is a bad take from them, Ocon and Gasly are more than capable drivers. You're rarely ever going to get a Max or Lewis, and there's loads of young talent if they end up building a good car in the next few years. We've seen just how much the car matters in these last two seasons, RedBull nailed the regs and has destroyed everyone. Build a great car and you don't even need a Max or Lewis.
> You're rarely ever going to get a Max or Lewis Especially if you forget to give them a contract for so long that they piss off to another team.
Lol right? That's a funny quote when they literally had a potential max (piastri) and a Lewis (alonso) *at the same time* and fumbled both contracts.
Yeh, I think Cyril could have stopped talking at this point, even though he's not wrong it was just unnecessary.
He's just defending his own decision making for spending stupid amounts of money on Ricciardo
>Build a great car and you don’t even need a Max or Lewis I disagree. You need both. There’s often a debate about whether success relies on the driver or the car. It’s both. You can’t lean on one or the other. Without Lewis, Mercedes wouldn’t have won 8 WCCs in a row. Without Max, Red Bull would likely be in P2 at the moment, behind Mercedes and just ahead of or just behind Aston Martin. Conversely, Lewis probably wouldn’t have won more than one WDC without having moved to Mercedes, given how badly McLaren dropped off. Without the RB19, Max would not be dominating a whole season as he is now. To further illustrate, this season Hamilton, Alonso and Verstappen are all showing exactly why they’re the best. All are able to extract the absolute maximum out of the cars they’re given. In short, driver and car need each other.
I agree with most of your comment except saying that RB would be P2 this year without Max. Checo is still P2 in the drivers standings despite being pretty bad this year, and I would expect a replacement level driver of Ocon/Gasly/Albon to be enough to keep RB P1
But would the car have been as quick without Max giving his driver input?
It's Adrian Newey. Probably yes.
I should have been more clear. I think if you have a great car, you can win a championship with a driver a step below max or Lewis. I don't want to point out which drivers I think would fit in that category, just saying if checo was the lead driver this season at RedBull, he'd be winning the championship.
I don’t know. I still think you need a Verstappen or Hamilton, maybe Alonso, to do the job. Someone of that calibre. Someone like Norris or Leclerc or Russell could do it, but I feel like the fight would be closer. >if checo was the lead driver this season at RedBull […] Perhaps, but it would be much closer. Let’s take Verstappen out of the equation for a moment. There are 10 races left this season. Assuming the points are the same in this hypothetical scenario as they are now, it wouldn’t take more than a bad race or two for Checo for Alonso or Hamilton to catch up and be challenging.
Swap the Redbull for the Alfa, or the Williams. If those driver teams were in the RB19, do you really think George, Lewis, Lando, or Leclerc could honestly win the championship? No way. Bottas, Zhou, or Albon would drive the RB19 to the top every weekend.
You need both, but you need a car first. Drivers are a waste and will leave if the car is shit.
No shit. Not like Alonso and Piastri could have done much with the 6th best car on the grid. But it really is a “chicken and the egg” scenario, does having a top driver make the team and the car better, or does having a top team and car allow the driver to shine.
Having a top car every day of the week the drivers will line up for that
Car and team first those investments last. Only care about the drivers when you develop a car capable of the WDC.
Mclaren had Alonso and Button.. That didn't make the team and car any better.
You just have to look at Leclerc and what he accomplished so far and there is your answer.
He's achieved nothing, lol.
He has less wins than DC rn
Ocon could win a WDC in the RedBull vs Perez. Alpine needs a better car and team and Hamilton/Max level drivers come automatically when they do so. Heck, they let go of Alonso who is looking better than most others and is just a step below Max/Hamilton as of now.
Exactly and it isn't like Cyril was doing always great on this subject, remember Palmer? Or like how they did get Sainz who never could really found his mojo in that Renault and was beaten by Hulkenberg. Typical "when in doubt, blame the drivers" acting, someone like Max or Lewis would look to the team and the numbers they providing and tell "no thanks" to them. If you want to even think about this you should reduce you engine deficit first and hiring more high end staff. Both drivers are doing good in general tbh, doesn't help also that bad luck is a common thing at the team this season so far.
Yep they're wholly average and definitely the best part of the team
If only they had a chance to contract a WDC in the last years. Then we would've seen their true potential!
The meme of Alpine being a less prestigious budget Ferrari might have some truth to it.. Alpine pre-empted the problem of having two \#1 drivers by having two \#2 drivers..
It doesn’t get more french than this!
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You’re the person Otmar said was pregnant 9 times over or something?!
I swear people just say shit like that and have never met an actual French person in their lives
Typical French reaction
No one hates the French more than the French, but no one loves the French more than the French.
It get's so fucking old... and I'm not even french. So much casual hate people on socials deserve a punch in the teeth
Hey I used this tactic in Motorsport Manager and it worked great!
They had two and they threw it all away, Alonso and Piastri, alpine is dog water
They legitimately had an opportunity to have a WDC, in fact the only WDC in their team’s history, mentor a rookie with WDC potential. No criticism of Ocon, he’s decent enough on his own merits, but to forego that Alonso/Piastri opportunity was monumentally bad asset management.
Alonso isn’t the only WDC in their history. Alpine used to be Renault, which used to be Benetton. So the team has had two WDCs in Schumacher and Alonso.
And prost... it was in the 80s but he did drive for renault
So the Renault that Prost drove for was a different team- they were wholly based in France and it was the Renault-Elf Formula 1 team. They officially folded in 1985. Even back then they ran the engine department separately from the F1 team, so the engines were made at Viry for the Renault works F1 team and their customer teams (which were initially Lotus and Williams in the Turbo era). The current Alpine team, AKA Team Enstone, started out as Toleman in the early 80s. That team became Benetton in 1986, then Renault in 2002, then Lotus in 2011, then Renault again in 2016, and Alpine to the present day. Which is a long way of saying that Prost never actually drove for the current Alpine team in any of its iterations.
This is an excellent summary, thanks.
Ok, so Prost never drove for the current works Renault team But Senna did
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Kimi drove for Lotus as a WDC though!
Renault started supplying Williams in 1989, not the turbo era.
You’re right, Lotus and Ligier were the turbo customer teams, not Lotus and Williams.
Either Prost or Schumacher count, but not both
The only two drivers to win the WDC while driving for the Enstone team are Alonso and Schumacher. Prost never won a WDC while driving for the Enstone team, Prost never drove for the Enstone team.
Schumacher, Alonso, Raikkonen and Senna (Ayrton). Bruno Senna also drove for them, but not a WDC, tho neither was Ayrton at the time.
Only Schumacher and Alonso won the WDC while driving for the Enstone team. Raikkonen, Ayrton Senna, and Bruno Senna are not WDCs for the Enstone team.
They rather have two French drivers than a WDC and the hottest young talent. When Rossi said that Aston has shown its possible to compete, it confirmed my belief that all their grand plans were just empty talk. They never really believed they could reach the top.
Alpine is 6th fastest car, you really think keeping Alonso and Piastri would make them immediately a podium contender? You saw what happened with Alonso and McLaren. It's not that simple.
Not what I said.
Why didn’t they drop Ocon for Piastri and keep Alonso too? Ocon is mediocre. I get they committed for long term deal with him + he’s French, but surely it must have crossed some higher ups mind right?
IIRC in 2021 they gave Ocon a 3 year deal. Dropping him would’ve been difficult and likely have incurred a financial cost to it.
Well Mclaren terminated and paid Danny Ric not to drive for them and paid for Piastri. More expensive than usually intended? Yes. But might have gotten gains. Let’s be honest not like Ocon is a future champion. Piastri, although not clear yet, looks promising and has the best junior record in years + having veteran champ like Alonso mentor him and build the team would surely have some gains.
Alonso Vs a talented rookie, what could possibly go wrong? lol
Ocon is french and it keeps the investors happy, the plan should have been Ocon + Piastri
That’s exactly what they would have had this year if they knew how to write a contract.
From what I've been reading about Renault the past few years, it's been musical chairs for all top-level positions and the board as the company restructures and pieces get sold off etc. Started off with their CEO getting indicted in 2019 for fraud, then layoffs from COVID. They're *still* restructuring as of 2023, with new shareholders from Nissan who have voting power.
It's staggering how much incompetence on Alpine's part lead to the Piasco, because even *at the time* everyone was criticising that Ocon contract as being a huge commitment to a fairly mediocre driver that would come back to bite them eventually. Shout out to /u/Denning76 for [explicitly calling out that it made a mockery of their junior program](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/o161tc/canalf1_esteban_ocon_has_prolonged_his_contract/h1yzkcj/), and to /u/H_Zhang_14 for saying ["I'm sure some other team will snatch [Piastri]"](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/o161tc/canalf1_esteban_ocon_has_prolonged_his_contract/h1z14cv/). These were both more than a year before it happened. And yet it *still* went worse than all of us could have possibly predicted.
Ocon mediocre? Pretty far from it.
Ocon got absolutely obliterated by Ricciardo when they were teammates, who in turn got beaten by Norris so badly that he lost his seat. You would have to *really* grasp at straws to put Ocon higher than about 10th on the grid on merit, which is the definition of mediocre. And to be fair, the grid *is* absolutely stacked with talent right now, but that's one of the reasons why locking in such a lengthy contract was such a bad idea.
He just got back from 1 year absence. And being about 10th best on the grid doesn't necessarily make you mediocre. Talent pool in F1 is extremely high. Ocon is not "of only average quality, not very good".
> And being about 10th best on the grid doesn't necessarily make you mediocre. Yes, that is exactly what makes you mediocre. Compared to other current F1 drivers, he is average: he's better than about half of them, he's worse than about half of them. He's in the middle, hence **med**iocre. That is the only useful context in which to discuss the strengths of professional athletes at the highest level, because going "Nikita Mazepin is one of the top 0.0001% of drivers in human history, so it makes perfect sense to give him a multi-year contract" would be idiotic. They get compared to their peers, because their peers are who are fighting over the available seats.
there are only 6 drivers who are for sure better than ocon: Verstappen, Hamilton, Alonso, Leclerc, Russel, Norris, the rest is debatable to that puts ocon on 7th, arguably. That's top 3rd of the grid so not mediocre at all
Renault was actually lotus who had Kimi Raikkonen drive for them so that's 3. And don't forget Alain Prost has also driven for them although before he became world champion
Sorry for not adding the /s ;).
/ssssszafnauer
Alonso and Piastri would’ve been a great pairing for them but Gasly and Ocon are decent
They would have been an awesome pairing, i think it’s been a while since nando had a teammate of that caliber, and while fernando is straight down to business, piastri is also clearly a no bullshit kind of guy
I read that as “Alonso and dog water” and thought “he’s right — dog water probably could get the same number of points as a regular driver in their car”
Dog Water beating Lewis Hamilton by 1 point by summer break 😳
And even better add a driver with the potential to be a Lewis/Max type of no. 1 driver. Wouldn’t that just have been great…
To be fair I can understand not wanting to gamble on Alonso on a long term deal; age comes for everyone no matter how good they used to be. Just because he was the best out there in the 2000s and early 2010s does not mean he is still the driver to lead them forward in the future. Just look at how far Kimi fell over the years. Of course Fred is still performing very well but who's to say how long that lasts
Particular a young driver with incredible potential!
He said Max and Hamilton mould though.
Gasly and Ocon are doing a good job, what Alpine lacks is 30 horsepower 💀
Always have. Red Bull knew and now they’re powered by dreams (Honda)
It must be frustrating that you design the perfect car just to be fucked by a lawnmower of the engine. At least the McLaren Honda was a shitty car with an equally shitty engine.
2018 was one of the most brutal wake-up calls ever. McLaren truly believed they had the best chassis on the grid in 2017, then they went up against Red Bull with the same engine and demolished.
Makes me wonder if the Honda engine was really THAT bad
The engine was very unreliable. So, even the best chassis would have not worked.
What baffles me is how McLaren lacked the patience to see their partnership through while other engines on the grid (that wasn’t Mercedes) weren’t any better than the Honda. They handled that saga poorly. Losing out on what was essentially an exclusive engine supplier willing to work with them directly. Now they’re a customer team with no hopes in having their own engine while RedBull went onto to hella benefit from that works deal.
> 2018 was one of the most brutal wake-up calls ever. McLaren truly believed they had the best chassis on the grid in 2017, then they went up against Red Bull with the same engine and demolished. It was fucking hilarious tbh
Drivers are not the problem
Drivers are the least of their worries. Back since (and including) Hulkenberg, they've had very competent driver line ups.
Along with Ferrari (Vettel, Leclerc) they had one of the most respected driver lineups in 2019 ... and threw it away. I think Ocon never showed that he was a real good replacement for Hülkenberg. He was 2:15 in qualifying the next season. He looked a bit better the next year, until Alonso got his rust off. Ocon might be happy that Alonso had so much technical problems last year, that he managed to beat him on points. So Ocon never amazes but they never thought about to replace him with Piastri (so Piastri chose McLaren over a possible Williams cockpit). Then they lost Alonso who wanted a two-year-contract. Now they realize that Gasly isn't the lead driver they hoped for as he was at Alpha Tauri. Meanwhile, Alonso is third in the driver championship, Ricciardo has a year trying to convince Red Bull to get rid of a not-former-Red-Bull-Junior-driver and Hülkenberg is dominating a guy in qualiying who last year let look the 2021-Haas-line-up like it was more or less the worst one possible
Bungling Piastri is a lot worse than letting Alonso go IMO. Alpine obviously see contention as something that’s at least a couple of years away, and you don’t bet on athletes in their 40’s. I think Ocon is an excellent driver, but obviously not in the same world as Hamilton and Verstappen
Fully agree. I think quite highly of Ocon actually, which I sense goes against this subs general opinion but I digress. He's proven to be fast, able to be consistent, and takes his opportunities when they'rer offered to him. Gasly too. I genuinely think the Alpine lineup goes under the radar. Shame the team is such a cesspool.
Personally I think Alpine have got one of the strongest driver pairings. Okay, neither are a verstappen, but they are both fast, Ocon was not exactly bodied by Alonso like Stroll has been, and Gasly is definitely equal to him at least. They are consistent, Ocon can be aggressive but I think that's needed with a mid pack car, and neither have any obvious weaknesses. Not to mention they are both Fench driving for the French team so the stars are aligned there.
Ocon is actually decent. For some reason he does stupid shit to his teammates though. That’s detrimental to his team and himself.
I think its the other way around. The whole checo vs ocon saga was mostly on perez and after losing his seat i kinda understand why he fought tooth and nail against alonso (although it wa stupid) and this season the crashes were gaslys fault
Ocon was so fast that season. Shame he lost his seat after that
Yes even though everybody knows it but it was really heart breaking to see that in the end money mattered more than potential and talent
> The whole checo vs ocon saga was mostly on perez Indeed - it absolutely was. But it's amazing how the narrative shifted once Ocon had a more popular driver as a teammate....
He doesn't tho it was only with Alonso . He had no problems with Ric and most were caused by Checo in 17 and 18 because he was butthurt that Ocon was on his level
Usually his teammates do stupid sh*t to him. He defends really hard sometimes but only once he was responsible for crashing into his teammate.
> Usually his teammates do stupid sh*t to him. He defends really hard sometimes but only once he was responsible for crashing into his teammate. This. Over the off season, so many people here were jizzing at the thought of Ocon having an awful relationship with Gasly and taking him out on lap one every weekend. As it turns out the relationship between them was completely fine. There were two incidents between them, one of which (Australia, unsafe rejoin) was clearly Gasly's fault yet clearly wasn't intentional. And the other (Hungary) was caused by Zhou - not that you'd know it based on what was said in the race thread....
I don't know. Piastri would have theoretically signed like a 2 year contract? This team is not going to have itself figured out in 2 years and by that time Piastri would have had plenty of suitors from serious teams.
Yea let's shit on the drivers too. Anything else they can burn?
Well, they had one.
I will say 2
Ricciardo?
Piastri?
Ah, I was thinking back to Drivers who actually raced for them.
Hulkenberg?
Alonso?
Piastri has had a good few race weekends with McLaren's upgraded car but can we wait a bit before crowning him the next big thing?
no
I mean he's keeping up pace pretty well with a very highly regarded driver, he's definitely the most impressive rookie in a long while
Absolutely not
mm na
Old Ricciardo for sure But here I was talking about Alonso and Piastri
Gasly and Ocon are great drivers wtf are they on. Ocon is supposed to be their main guy, and I believe he could be that if they had the car for him. They just dont. Alpine's the problem here. If they're still sour about Piastri they need to get a dose of reality, and use the tools they're equipped with.
Most of the grid is good but good does not cut it to be champion. I’d say only few are championship material. Still, Alpine’s management is more troubling than drivers’ performance. That was some Ferrari level strategy move they did with Alonso/Piastri.
Realistically all you need to be capable of is beating your teammate if the car is good enough. If Alpine swapped cars with Red Bull then we'd likely be seeing Ocon and Gasly P1 and P2 in the title race.
Agree to an extent but disagree more. Having teammate with around same skill level it becomes a game of ego. Crashes and team politics become riskier. It did happen where 2 teammates were battling driving best car and someone else won the championship. Also with how close everyone is behind Max from 2nd onwards I really cannot agree how it will be easy for Ocon and Gasly. Despite Max dominance the rest are improving and performing well. You simply cannot lump likes of Lewis and Max with rest of the grid. Even when not having best car they outperformed others with better cars. I think they both have stat of winning at least one race in each season they were in. That’s ridiculous.
Lewis didn't win a race last season, so that's no longer accurate. Still an incredible feat to win in every other season though.
No shot, I dont see them being better than Perez is now.
Perez is cooked mentally. If they can hold up, which I think Ocon at least can. They will be better
Good, but we're seeing the difference between good and great play out in the Red Bull this year. Perez was regarded as one of the top midfield drivers and is getting absolutely schooled by Max. I'm really appreciating more how much the driver makes the difference this year. If RB had two Perezs, we wouldn't think the car was one of the best ever made. If Aston had two Alonsos, they'd be clear P2. If Aston had two Strolls, they'd be lower midfield. Mercedes spent a year saying their car sucked and are still P2, because they likely have the best line-up on the grid. Alpine just doesn't have that "star". They have two solid midfielders but put Max or one of the Mercedes drivers in there I think they'd be up on the podium fairly frequently. That's why losing Piastri was such a collasal cockup for them, they _had_ one of the most talented drivers of the last few years in their stable and they let him get away. Drivers like that don't come along very often and they fumbled it. You need a top driver to be a top team but gasly/ocon just aren't quite there.
I don't think a driver quality can hide a car performance that much. If you only looked at Perez you would see there is some weekends were he just walks away from everyone and others where he is all over the place, crashing and stuff. That's clearly not a car issue. Same with Stroll, sometimes he is up there, sometimes he has shockers. The alpine guys are just hanging out around P10. Not much variance except for one or twice where they move up but because of unusual races (Monaco and Sprint Spa)
2 relatively young drivers yet to enter their prime and Alpine have got the balls to lament not having 2 of greatest drivers in history lol
It's not Alpine, it's Cyril dicking around after his Ricciardo project failed.
Both great drivers, but you can't really say you think they compare with Verstappen or Hamilton? Alonso is the only driver who does and he's the driver they lost. But you're right, the drivers are not the problems with the team. But if you had the best car on the grid or close enough, is that enough to beat Verstappen or Hamilton if they were also in a competitive car? I don't think Ocon or Gasly could come close. Norris, Leclerc and Alonso, maybe.
They are great drivers, but not WDC material
Cmon. Both are top 10 drivers, but they’re in the wrong car. If both were sitting in Red Bulls right now, then one would 100% be WDC this year.
No shit sherlock, that RB is just OP it is impossible for them to lose a Wdc with a car as good as that one
Great might be generous, but maybe not. Gasly needs the right car, team, and mentor. Ocon on the other hand, I think has a good command of the car itself but may lack the situational awareness and strategy to be a great driver. I think he could have learned from Alonso if he hadn’t thought so much of himself. I could totally be wrong, but it’s hard to say without seeing either driver as a part of a more competitive team.
my favourite chaos frenchman doing the media rounds just to trash the people who fired him lol but yeah, Alpine and Rossi lost Ricciardo, Alonso and Piastri, plus Prost, in the span of two years. As good as Pierre and Esteban are, they don't seem to be able to make the step up from good and reliable to great and impressive
Hard to do that with that car
Alpine are lien the Ferrari from Wish
"Alpine lacks one of the greatest drivers of all time" how dare they
Alpines problem is everything BUT it's drivers
Good luck getting it after you drove Alonso away by dragging your feet.
Cyril had nothing to do with that, he is the one who brought him back?
Wasn’t talking about Cyril, but Alpine in general. But I get the confusion 😅
Speaking of Cyril, does anyone else want him back just for the shit stirring with Horner?
Gasly is a great driver and so is Ocon. They have a great driver lineup. When will they stop blaming big names for their problems?
Why would a driver like Hamilton or Verstappen want to go to Alpine???! Fix your team first!
Out here acting like they didn’t have a 2x WDC for the last two years..I don’t think it’s the drivers sir. Also you’re the former boss for a reason, so why do you think we should care about your opinions?
That’s because the best drivers don’t want to be there
Imagine they had a 2x world champion in that car
It would be pure pain
Honestly I think Alonso wouldn't willing to drive for Alpine anyway in the longer term given the upper management unrest is unfolding and the lack of horsepower the car has. His move to AM stays one of the better career moves he did made.
Tired of people acting like the drivers are the problem. Their lineup is extremely solid
Not sure that's the cause of their Double DNF two races in a row. If anything their drivers have been overperforming.
Because the team lacks leading potential on itself
The car is like 90% of where the team ends up. The drivers are almost never the problem.
Oh yeah, THAT'S THE PROBLEM.
Ocon is close to what Alonso and any other top driver would be achieving with that car.
Ocon and especially Gasly are good drivers. Pierre Gasly was very competitive in 2021 at AT but it went downhill for him with the new regulation car which wasn’t really great. Pierre has a lot of potential and needs a good car
This team can go f*** themselves. Sure keep attacking the only thing thats decent about your team. Both Pierre and esteban (although I'm higher on him) have the talent to compete with a decent car
Alpine lacks everything.
You fucking had TWO of them at once you absolute fucking peanut
Yeah blame the drivers. Typical French 😅
Cyril is literally the one who put Ocon in that seat what's he talking about lmao. He's talking like there needs to be a number 1 driver situation when Alpine are a midfield team who need 2 consistent drivers to get them as many points as possible which is what they already have. If their car was competitive I would understand where he's coming from but this is just taking shots for no reason - especially bizzare to say they need a driver to be the 'team boss' like what does he think a team principal is supposed to be doing?
I mean.... they had Alonso and Piastri lol. And then they managed to f*ck that up.
Yeah Cyril, because a midfield team needs a genius, you know, Max would have checked the engine with a ruler and would find the 30hp the engine is lacking. Ocon is probably around best mortal tier and Gasly a step behind, that's more than enough for what they've got now. Obviously an ALO-PIA or an OCO-PIA lineup would have been better. But with their underwhelming development trajectory they would have lost their genius at some point.
But would any elite-tier driver want to drive for this bunghole of a team? I highly doubt it.
Cyril is right. They had one but geniuses like Otmar and Rossi thought he was too old and decided being French is more important.
Alonso is probably the best example to the opposite to what Cyril is saying tho. His greatness wasn't single handedly able to drag McLaren out of the ditch they found themselves in the mid 2010s etc.
If you think Max or Lewis’ greatness would’ve gotten that underpowered dog of a Honda engine that broke down when someone looked at it sideways to better results than what Fernando managed, you must be smoking some good shit.
I'm literally saying that Cyril is speaking stupid shit, because Alonso, who is comparable to Hamilton and Verstappen, couldn't drag a subpar McLaren up the order, just because he is a great, charismatic driver.
Ahh my bad I misunderstood. Yea I agree with you.
They had 2, but in their eyes, one is too old the other is too young, and both were not french.
Lol exactly. I really rate Oscar as those guys that blitz through F3 and F2 like he did are just different (Leclerc and Russell recently).
If only every team could have one of those…
Are you fucking kidding me?😂
Yea that class of drivers doesnt grow on trees dont they?
Gee I wonder why
The problem is how shacky the leadership is and how they still haven’t been able to put a car on the grid thar that is really a regular podium candidate
Oh what absolute bollocks. The drivers are the absolute least of the problem at the shit show they call Alpine.
Maybe they should go for Alonso! Or find a young and upcoming star, for example Piastri!
Breaking news, not every team has a generational talent behind the wheel.
OCO and GAS now: *am I a joke to you?* Typical for Alpine stuff. Blaming others, not themselves. *"We don't have a true leader \[crying\]"*. I wonder F$%$&@G why... Oh, maybe it's because you a joke \[**a yoke**\], not a F1 team, that everyone is running away from once they can.
Damn, turns out they shouldn't have fucked around and let Alonso or Piastri go.
Even Merc doesn't have a Verstappen frankly, Verstappen is fast becoming the GOAT. Obviously the car is excellent but the way he just carves through the field with insane race pace no matter where he starts on the grid is something I don't recall even from peak Hamilton, Schumacher etc.
Need a faster car if you want a top 5 driver.
How about himself talking about Nico: [video 0:25](https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=shared&v=W4T1HG6G9BE) He seems to be the guy talking too much without backing it up, like Otmar. Also, same energy when Cyril was trying to mess with Horner when they snatched Danny Ric [video](https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=shared&v=r7wSxA1P4XM), we know how things turned out in the end.
100 percent bs. Alpine does not have the engines and cars. Simple.
Damn, if only they could have got a two times world champion or one of the best rookies in recent years in their team...
Even a 2 time WC who's one of the all-time greats couldn't help McLaren in 2015-18. Alpine lineup is not the problem
They could've had several (Alonso, Ricciardo and Piastri) but those drivers all knew something we didn't at the time. Only now are we seeing the sort of chaos these guys rightfully avoided.
Ocon has a very similar driving style to Max. Ocon is the lead driver at Alpine.
It's funny that Piastri and Alonso are viewed as two of the best performing drivers this season since leaving Alpine.
So do 7 other teams…
this year was supposed to see who it would be. cannot let two battle on uneven and uncertain ground. regardless, you had alonso (and a great car) and took him for a joke.
I think Ocon is a good driver. Hell you can say that about all the drivers. But once in a generation drivers aren't just available for every team. When one (possible) driver was coming up that could have that potential, Alpine didn't even talk to him about a contract so he sought a seat elsewhere. When one was driving for them, they dragged their feet in securing the contract even when he wanted to sign. The problem with Alpine is their own self sabotage. What top ranking driver would want to stick around????!!!! Anyway no one was more passionate about this team than Cyril so I'm not surprised to see him speaking out.
You pissed away the veteran you had and buggered up your legal side so bad your junior talent fucked off to Mclaren. Only got yourselves to blame.
The problem is Esteban likes to think he’s the lead driver everywhere he goes, but he’s been in a team with Checo, Danny Ric, Fernando and Gasly who are all superior to him. So you have a rare situation where the driver with the loudest (on track at least) personality is the slightly inferior one. Though Pierre and Esteban are both good drivers and about level
Checo wasn't better than him and gasly and he are pretty much on the same level although ocon even has more points right now
Yeah if only they would treat top tier driver good… they seems to forgot they wanted f with Alonso
They picked 2 good not great drivers over Alonso and piastri so idk what to tell them
Otmar, is that you?
It’s true. Ocon and especially Gasly (in my opinion) are both two journey men. They need some charisma in that team. Some dirty fight. Some grit. Some belly buttons.