"60% of F1 paddock has worse relationship than ours" - Pierre Gasly on his equation with Alpine teammate Esteban Ocon

Pierre Gasly feels his relationship with Esteban Ocon has been blown out of proportion by the media. The two French drivers will be teaming up at Alpine this season.

Both drivers grew up together and used to be best friends until the two had a falling out for some reason. Since then, both have made their way through the junior racing categories, into F1, and are now on the same team. While both Ocon and Gasly claim that their relationship is now much better, paddock speculation remains with many F1 pundits believing that the two drivers are heading for a collision course.

Pierre Gasly, however, disagrees as he feels many driver relationships on the grid are worse than what he has with Esteban Ocon. He told Motorsport:

“I think this is a subject that is talked about far too often. We get along well. We may not be best friends, but we can go through a door together. When I go over the paddock and the relationships between other team-mates, there are certainly relationships that are worse than ours. If the relationship between Esteban and me needs to be discussed, you can talk about 60 per cent of the paddock. So no, it’s fine between us.”

He added:

“I think it will be a healthy rivalry, and in the end that’s why we both made it to Formula 1. We all pushed each other to the highest level possible, so I’m not worried.”

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Pierre Gasly's view of his new Alpine teammate Esteban Ocon

Speaking about Esteban Ocon, Pierre Gasly was quite complimentary as he mentioned how his new teammate had proved himself with his performance against veteran Fernando Alonso. He said:

“I know that Esteban is an extremely good driver. He showed that next to Fernando [Alonso]. He finished level with Fernando in the championship, so he is performing very well. In the end, it doesn’t really matter who is next to me. I want to be the best in F1 and to do that you have to compete against everyone who is in the sport right now. He knows the team and I know he is fast.”

The move to Alpine is certainly a change for Gasly after having spent a long time at AlphaTauri. The rivalry between him and Ocon could be interesting this season and worth keeping an eye on.