Esteban Ocon has been shocked by the performance boost Alpine's Formula 1 upgrades have delivered, but teammate Pierre Gasly says he was expecting it. After a slow start to the season, Alpine introduced a big upgrade package in Azerbaijan, but the team executed a poor race weekend, leading to CEO Laurent Rossi to label some aspects as "amateur". Since then, at least one Alpine has qualified in the top five in Miami, Monte Carlo and Barcelona (although Gasly was demoted to 10th in Spain because of a double penalty in Qualifying) - with Ocon bagging a podium with third place in Monaco. While there is still some work to do for Alpine to close the gap to the big four teams, Ocon admitted his pleasant surprise with the upgrade package - but Gasly pointed to their impressive 2022 development rate as to why he expected it.
Ocon's surprise
"We are having a good time, and happy that we are in this position so far," Ocon told media including RacingNews365 ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix. "We were probably not expecting bringing the upgrades that they were going to add so much performance to the car, especially on Saturdays. "It's definitely great news that we are still on course for what we want to fight for, there is a lot of work ahead of us, but we are not staying still or going backwards. We are moving forward, and that is very important."
Gasly's expectations
One hallmark of Alpine's 2022 season was how each upgrade they brought to the car worked immediately, something that has not always happened for the Enstone-squad. It was this record that Gasly highlighted as to why he expected the upgrades to work. "Last year the team showed really good progress and evolution with the upgrades throughout the entire season," he explained. "It was probably the strongest strength throughout the whole year, so I trusted in the team to improve the performance. "We had a pretty slow start of the year, probably starting on the back foot and a bit further away from the competition than we would have liked, but clearly, I think it's fair to say it came as a bit of a positive surprise that in Monaco we were able to fight for the podium. "In Barcelona, again, top four in Qualifying, so there seems to be definitely some very good potential to unlock from the package we’ve got. "That's why I'm pretty confident in the coming races. The coming weekends, I think there are definitely some big points to get as a team."
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