24-year-old Frenchman Esteban Ocon signed a contract with Alpine F1 until 2024 on Wednesday. Ocon sees his strong start to the season rewarded in the best possible way.
Ocon would be destroyed by teammate Fernando Alonso at Alpine, it was said by quite a few specialists before the start of the F1 season. After all, the experienced Spaniard has a reputation for outclassing his teammates and turning the whole team to his will. Just ask Stoffel Vandoorne.
But none of that at Ocon. The Frenchman was more than Alonso’s counterpart in the first five races, who only managed to come alongside again in the World Cup standings after bad luck for Ocon in Azerbaijan.
“Esteban has clearly grown over the past few seasons,” said Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi. “Despite his relatively young age, he already has a lot of experience in F1 (Ocon is in his fifth season in the queen class, ed.), and we are convinced that after the introduction of the new rules in 2022 he will will come in very handy.”