Ocon: ‘Perfect’ 100th F1 race in Austria ‘feels like a win’

Esteban Ocon says P5 “felt like a win” after a “perfect weekend” to celebrate his 100th Formula 1 race in Austria.

After Alpine teammate Fernando Alonso failed to start the Sprint, the Frenchman led the midfield for the remainder of the weekend at the Red Bull Ring.

Unfortunately, Ocon wasn’t able to keep the two Mercedes’ at bay, but he was still thrilled to maximise a milestone moment in his F1 career.

“It was a perfect weekend in terms of performance and how we’ve optimised the result,” he said post-race.

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“It’s not a win, but it feels like a win because there was nothing better that we could have done from qualifying to the Sprint to now.

“There was some hope that I could have kept George [Russell] behind, but after the Virtual Safety Car restart he was just too fast, so there was no possibility to keep him under control and behind.

“13 points and we obviously are tied with McLaren now in the Constructors’ Championship.”

More encouraging is Alpine has come into form at just the right time ahead of the team and Ocon’s home race at Paul Ricard later this month.

“It’s very positive,” Esteban added. “I’m very happy to see that the one that we brought to Silverstone made quite a difference – we can really see it now. I hope the next ones are going to be as big.

“We still have work to do to be able to perform against the Mercedes because they are still too fast, so if the team can bring more of this stuff, we will take it!

“I go to France with confidence and the team goes there with good confidence, and I have no doubt we will perform also there.”

Alpine’s performance in Austria also buoyed Alonso who recovered from a pit-lane start to finish 10th, a result that would have been a lot better without an additional pit-stop due to a strong tyre vibration.

“It was a tricky race, at the beginning we were all in a DRS train and that was quite difficult to overtake, but I felt so much faster than the cars around,” he said.

“In a way, I’m very pleased and upbeat about the car performance today because cars that we are fighting normally with, today they were really slow compared to our pace so that’s a very good sign.

“We pitted under the VSC and we were heading to P6 because I was just behind Lando [Norris] with new tyres doing 1m08s at the end, it was very easy to pass them.

“Maybe finishing just behind Esteban [was possible] which would be amazing for the team, fifth and sixth, especially starting last.”