Esteban Ocon will race at this weekend's British Grand Prix with a new chassis, after Alpine have made the call to replace the French driver's monocoque after a bad run of races. Ocon was a regular points scorer for the first handful of races, and very clearly had the upper hand over the returning Fernando Alonso. After signing a long-term contract with Alpine ahead of the French GP, Ocon's performances slipped to the point where he was eliminated in Q1 last time out in Austria. "Esteban had two difficult races in Austria and we’re still investigating whether there are any technical reasons behind it," said Alpine's Marcin Budkowski ahead of the British Grand Prix. Ocon had called upon his team to make a lot of changes to his car after Austria, given that Alonso was able to score points in the sister car. Alpine are granting him that wish, with a change of chassis for Silverstone. "To eradicate any doubt, the team has made the decision to make extensive changes to his car for Silverstone, including a new chassis. "Esteban performed very strongly at the start of the season and qualified the car on the third row of the grid on merit at two races in a row just a few weekends ago, so we are working together to make sure he bounces back, and this weekend is the perfect opportunity to do that." Having a clean slate to start the weekend, Ocon explained the importance of the mental reset, knowing that the possibility of the car being the problem has been taken out of the equation. "The France-Austria triple header was not as successful as we had hoped," he explained to media. "It’s good that we’re heading to a completely different circuit, taking on a new challenge and having a reset. "The team and I have been working very hard behind the scenes to see what we can do to improve our performance. I know we’ll come back to the level we had at the start of the season and the hard work will only continue until we achieve that and even go beyond. I’m really motivated for a good result this weekend."
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