Ocon's cause for optimism despite recent Alpine concerns

Esteban Ocon has played down Alpine's reliability concerns in recent races as something that "happens in motorsport" after his costly DNF in Singapore.

In what has been a below-par season for the team, Ocon was running sixth on Lap 41 of 62 at Marina Bay, and looked set to bank his second-best result of the season after his Monaco podium.

However, a gearbox failure put him out of the race with team-mate Pierre Gasly going on to claim P6 instead, which followed Ocon's DNF in the Italian Grand Prix with a steering failure.

Despite the struggles and comparative lack of performance in 2023, Ocon remains optimistic and has pointed to upgrades introduced to the A523 as reason it can continue to be "on the rise."

Alpine reliability

"I'm not really more concerned, I think those things happen, unfortunately, in motorsport," Ocon told media including RacingNews365.

"It’s a painful one because we were going to score quite a lot of points and were very close to being in the top five as well in that race.

"The car was suddenly very alive, and very quick, all the way through the race and I was very happy with the performance that we had. Obviously, it was a premature end to our day – and on my birthday, so that didn't feel too great.

"We did bring some updates into Singapore, which made a difference.

"The team did a really good job in comparison to Monza, which was a bit of an extreme circumstance, but we really improved the car and had much more performance, qualified back in Q3 for [the first time in a] while and, in the race, we were overtaking and were on the charge really, which was a bit, I'm not going to say unexpected, but it was in comparison to the other races.

"That's really due to the hard work of the team, and each time we bring something, it has worked out.

"We need to keep doing what we do. Keep focusing on ourselves and hopefully, that's going to continue well on the rise."