Ocon rues lack of consistency amid F1 2023 struggles

Esteban Ocon has stated that a lack of consistency throughout this year's Formula 1 campaign left the team with “missed opportunities”.

Ocon ended the season 12th in the Drivers' Championship with 58 points, the fewest he's scored since joining the Enstone-based squad in 2020.

After taking fourth in last year's Constructors' standings, Alpine slipped to sixth this year.

Its season was largely overshadowed by major mid-season management changes, including the departure of Otmar Szafnauer whose exit was announced during the Belgian Grand Prix weekend.

Ocon's best rest of the campaign came in Monaco where he managed to score a podium - however the Frenchman is unsatisfied with the overall performance of the season.

“What’s more important is for us to be understanding of what has been happening this season. Quite a lot of ups and downs in terms of performance and in terms of pace,” Ocon told media including RacingNews365.com.

“Consistency is what we need to get better, clearly. [There were] good opportunities that we took like Monaco, Las Vegas and stuff like that, but quite a lot we didn't, like Singapore and Austin.

“If you take these two, we probably could have been in the top 10 in the Drivers' Championship.

“Clearly, it meant that we didn't maximize the season. So it's going to be important to fix all of those things for next year and start on top of it.”

Seven DNFs

Ocon also suffered seven non-finishes during the year, tying Logan Sargeant for the most in the field.

Some came about due to reliability concerns, but also through damage as he collided with team-mate Pierre Gasly in Australia and Hungary and Oscar Piastri in the United States.

“I think there have been some very good things, some very good opportunities that we took, but the consistency overall hasn't been there,” Ocon added.

“And we had too many DNFs that cost us. If you remove the issue we have in the gearbox in Singapore and the contact with Oscar in Austin, we put ourselves in the top 10 in the championship.

“A bit of wasted opportunities.”