Esteban Ocon is confident that his Alpine car will cope well with porpoising during next weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix, despite Mercedes struggling to limit the bouncing effect. Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were both seen bouncing violently down the straights at the Bahrain International Circuit as they pushed their cars during the final day of testing. AlphaTauri also struggled amongst a list of teams which, after six days of testing their cars, are still yet to find a performance-friendly cure for porpoising. Alpine, however, join McLaren as one of a few outfits which seem to have built cars that are easier to prevent from bouncing, with the problem cured by only a few simple tweaks. Ocon shrugged off the prospect of a bouncy Bahrain race as he admitted that the team had only really been hit by the problem once and found the solution with ease.
Alpine not concerned by bouncing
"Everybody is struggling, in the end, because it is their new cars and there is a lot to understand," explained Ocon, speaking to Sky Sports F1 ahead of this weekend's Grand Prix. "We have seen some reliability issues here and there on our side once in Barcelona, but the rest was trouble-free. "It is all going well at the moment. We've seen some bouncing from Fernando [Alonso], but we know how to fix it. "On my days we have had none, which is good for me, because I did not need to take a paracetamol!" "You can solve it," he added, suggesting that the answer lies purely in tweaks to the car's ride height. "When the car is squatting down, it is worse, and I think the headwind at Turn 1 [in Bahrain] was not helping."
Ocon: Alonso win would be great for F1
Last season, Alpine clinched the season's fairy tale victory as Ocon made the most of a Turn 1 pile-up and Mercedes strategy chaos to win in Hungary. This season they will be hoping for more of the same with Alonso, who valiantly held Lewis Hamilton back from attacking Ocon that day in Budapest, deserving of a reward for the work he has contributed to the Enstone team. "We will push for [another surprise win]," said Ocon. "It is great to work with Fernando. I am very happy to keep going [with him]. To be learning everything again and to have that close relationship with him is mega, because we can push the team forward." "Happy days," he added. "We keep going."
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