According to Esteban Ocon, one of the main reasons behind Alpine’s struggles this season is because some of the driver feedback from previous years has never been taken into consideration.
Esteban Ocon has given an overview of the issues that have plagued Alpine recently as the team continues to suffer more turmoil with the departure of Bruno Famin with the arrival of Oliver Oakes and the return of Flavio Briatore.
Despite securing some point finishes just before the summer break, the Enstone outfit endured a terrible start to the season and is currently down in eighth place in the constructors classification.
The main issue remains to be the underwhelming performance of the Renault power unit, which has prompted the French automaker to announce its intention to discontinue running as an engine manufacturer and instead run Alpine team on customer engines.
By then, Ocon will have exited the team and moved on to Haas starting 2025. However, he states that the team’s issues go far beyond an unreliable power unit.
“There’s a lot of things that were not evolved the way that it should’ve been,” Ocon told RacingNews365.
Ocon blamed the team for failing to respond on feedback from drivers, including himself as well as his teammates since 2020 (Daniel Ricciardo, Fernando Alonso, and Pierre Gasly).
“I think on my side – on Fernando’s side, on Pierre’s side, on Daniel’s side – we said a lot of things on the car development, and unfortunately, at some stage, there’s been a loop missing,” he added.
“We were giving the feedback, but didn’t really have the feedback coming back to us and the confirmation. Sometimes we haven’t been listened to the way we should have been, I would say.
“We are carrying some issues that we still had a couple of years ago. We’ve improved a lot of other things, but you can’t be waiting years and years to be able to fix some problems and that’s what has happened.
“The circle didn’t come back. The issues haven’t been fixed the way they should have been, which is frustrating for everyone.
“Obviously we don’t have a car that performs the way we’re supposed to perform. That’s what we have to live with.”
This comes after former Renault boss Flavio Briatore made a return as an advisor while Hitech Racing boss Oliver Oakes was confirmed to replace team principal Bruno Famin, who was assigned other roles within the Renault group.
It remains unknown who will replace Ocon for 2025 F1. However, it is reported that junior Jack Doohan is the front-runner for promotion to a full-time race seat.
