Alpine’s Esteban Ocon has been embroiled in the mid-to-backmarker Formula 1 fight so far this season thanks to Alpine’s struggles and the Frenchman said entering weekends without a realistic chance to score is the “worst feeling.”
The season opener in Bahrain was a retirement-free affair and showed the top five teams of Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Aston Martin were a step ahead of the rest of the field, who finished a lap down on the top 10 points finishers.
Retirements in Saudi Arabia and Australia have helped the other teams creep into the points but after three rounds a 19-point gap has already emerged between fifth-placed Aston Martin (25 points) and sixth-placed RB (6 points) with three teams yet to score points at all.
Ocon was among the drivers asked to comment on the gulf appearing between the top and bottom five teams ahead of the Australian Grand Prix.
“It’s the worst feeling you can have,” he said.
“I honestly hate that, when you do a good weekend and you are not able to score points, you know, there’s no reward for you in the end.
“But it’s up to us [Alpine] to try and get more performance and get closer to these cars.
“It’s tough to go into a weekend and push as hard as you can also mentally you know, to be doing the maximum knowing that there could be no reward in the end. But it’s part of the job.
“You need to do the best you can with what you have in hand and that’s why I’m here.”
Kevin Magnussen, whose defensive driving enabled Haas team-mate Nico Hulkenberg to grab a point in Saudi Arabia, before joining the German in a double-point finish for the team in Australia following retirements from Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell also spoke on the point-scoring prospects of the smaller teams.
The Dane admitted competitors in the latter half of the pecking order need to execute a perfect race to have a chance at scoring, but said that chances will present themselves through retirement and Safety Car incidents.
“Obviously, the fact that if you execute a really good weekend, then on paper you still don’t score points, that’s not great, of course,” Magnussen said.
“At the same time, it makes it even more competitive in the Constructors’ Championship because you’ve really got to win that B-class race to even have a chance.
“If you don’t win that, then your chances are very small.
“But, you know, historically, statistically, there will be chances.
“There will be more than one car at some races in those 10 first cars that will not finish or have problems and there’s going to be races where it’s difficult to overtake.
“Maybe you can be lucky with a Safety Car or anything like that. So it’s not like all over, but it’s certainly harder.”
Logan Sargeant added that “the bottom five teams are so close that you’re looking for every hundredth. And at the end of the day, when you’re in that position, you have to try and maximise everything to leave yourself in the position for when one of the cars in the top five teams goes out to try and pick that point up.”
Those words likely now haunt the American, for just a day after uttering them in the Australian GP Drivers’ Press Conference, he was pulled from competing for the remainder of the weekend, following Alex Albon’s crash in opening practice.
With Williams failing to have a spare chassis, Sargeant, despite not being culpable for the incident, suffered the consequences as the team deemed Albon the more capable driver to snatch points if available with the sole-remaining FW46.
This signified the extreme measures teams in the bottom half of the field must take in the bid to secure vital points and even with them employed and retirements helping its cause, Williams still came away from Melbourne empty handed.
