"We didn't have to be shy of anybody" - Esteban Ocon optimistic about Alpine's power unit

Alpine driver Esteban Ocon is optimistic about the French team's power unit after the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The driver claims the former Renault side have made gains in their power unit since 2021 when they lacked straight-line speed compared to their rivals.

Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso put on a spectacular show for fans in the opening stages of the 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The two drivers jousted it out on the track after being encouraged to do so by the team. The drivers claimed their battle in Jeddah was akin to a Go-Kart race.

Speaking about Alpine's PU upgrade in 2022, Ocon told Motorsport.com:

“Good. I mean, we didn’t have to be shy of anybody. As soon as I had the DRS open I could pass, I could overtake easily the Aston of Nico [Hulkenberg], Lando in the McLaren. Who else? I mean Fernando, of course, he was there. I could compare to many different cars, and it was working well for us.”

Ocon finished sixth in Jeddah, only one place behind Mercedes driver George Russell's W13. The Frenchman, however, still feels Mercedes is significantly faster than Alpine at race pace. He said:

“He was not pulling away as much as we thought, but he was still pulling away compared to us. So they still have a little bit of race pace advantage clearly and this is something we are going to be working on. I think it’s been two very strong weekends for the team. Unfortunately it’s a shame that Fernando didn’t complete the race, because there was a double points finish for the team again. But we’ve been progressing.”

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Alpine's Otmar Szafnauer claims team will engage in a development war in 2022

Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon confirmed that the team has a solid power unit capable of challenging other midfield teams. Alpine boss Otmar Szafnauer, however, claims the French team will focus on aero development going forward in 2022 as the fight between midfield teams is as tough as it gets.

The former Aston Martin honcho told Motorsport.com about the development battle this year, saying:

“Esteban [Ocon] finished best of the rest today and Fernando [Alonso] would have been ahead of him had he not had this problem. So from that regard, we’re happy. However, the learning curve on this car is so steep, that it’s going to be a development race. So we just have to keep adding performance to the car. But it’s not going to be the same tomorrow, unless we add performance and what we try to do is add performance at a quicker rate than the others.”

While it is unclear which team will emerge victorious out of the midfield battle, fans can look to Alpine for more exciting battles between the teammates going forward in 2022.