Alpine’s Esteban Ocon has been left with “difficult feelings” after missing out on his second podium finish of the year in Jeddah by one-tenth of a second.
On the sprint to the chequered flag at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, the French driver was overtaken by Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas, after running inside the top three for much of the race.
Alpine scored a podium finish in Qatar two weeks ago with Fernando Alonso, adding to its 2021 highlights alongside Ocon’s victory in Hungary earlier this season.
Despite feeling upset over missing out on another podium, Ocon hailed the Alpine team, believing it will be a “dangerous” outfit in seasons to come.
“It’s difficult, difficult feelings right now,” Ocon said. “We gave it our all in that race, clearly. It’s frustrating because we had that third place for the whole race.
“The team did an amazing job, the car was spot on. We are fighting in a different league to Mercedes. To lose that third place seconds from the line, it’s very frustrating.
“It’s the plan, as Fernando would call it. We are getting there, we are getting where we want. We extract the maximum out of the car and once we are going to have that pace that the others have, we are going to be dangerous.
“That’s what we’re working towards but I’m extremely proud of all the stuff, all the decisions we took were mega, spot on. But it was a difficult end, obviously.”
Ocon benefitted from the series of red flags that were deployed early on in the race, and even began the third and final standing start from pole position.
“I was going to take any opportunity I could,” Ocon reflected. “For sure, there was a lot of contact in that race, but in the first two starts, I gained four places.
“Each time I was getting two until the last one where we had a little bit older tyres. I was not fighting against Lewis and Max, I knew that.
“I let them go and they did their own race. From then, it was the aim to keep third place and we did so until far into the race. Next time.”
