Ocon is managed by Mercedes and came through their young driver programme.

When he lost his Force India seat, it was Mercedes that took him on as reserve driver in 2019.

At one point, team principal Toto Wolff was considering putting Ocon in the race team alongside Hamilton. One of the reasons he did not was he thought their characters would clash, that the relationship would be too combustible. Valtteri Bottas was retained for 2020 after all.

At the same time, George Russell, the next Mercedes protege, was excelling for Williams and Mercedes concluded from the data they had on both that Russell was their guy for the future, not Ocon.

That was effectively the end of Ocon’s career as a potential candidate for a top team but Mercedes helped him back on to the grid with a drive at Renault in 2020, before the team was rebranded Alpine in 2021.

It was for them that Ocon took his sole victory, at the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix. He drove well but the win owed a substantial amount to fortune.

The start was wet and there was a multi-car pile-up that took out Bottas and both Red Bulls.

Ocon came out of that pile-up running second to Hamilton. The race was red-flagged. By the time it was restarted, the track was drying.

At the end of the formation lap, every single car pitted for dry-weather slick tyres bar Hamilton, who took to the grid on his own.

He had to stop on the next lap, falling to the back. That put Ocon into the lead from Sebastian Vettel’s Aston Martin, a car of similar performance on a track where overtaking is difficult. Ocon and Alpine managed the race well to stay in front of the four-time champion throughout.

Hamilton spent the rest of the race fighting back and his pace was so superior it appeared he might win.

Until he caught Alonso, that is. The Spaniard, who had been delayed by rather than benefitting from the first-lap crash, was running fourth, close behind Ocon, Vettel and Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari.

Alonso knew what was at stake, that if Hamilton passed him quickly, the Briton would almost certainly win the race. And he knew what a win would mean for Alpine.

The team’s last victory had been in 2013 but that was when they were known as Lotus and were under different owners. Renault’s most recent win had been secured by Alonso – at the 2008 Japanese Grand Prix.

Alonso won his two world titles for Renault. He had been brought back to F1 after a two-year break by Renault. And so he fought as hard as he knew to keep Hamilton at bay for as long as possible.

The Mercedes was so much faster that at times it looked as if Hamilton might drive through or over Alonso. Instead, using all his skill and guile, he held Hamilton back for 10 laps.

When Hamilton finally passed Alonso, there were only five laps to go. Within two, he was past Sainz but he did not have time to make any further progress before the chequered flag.

Ocon and Alonso celebrated together with the team after the win.

Yet little more than a year later, relations had deteriorated to the point that, after a clash between the pair at the Brazilian Grand Prix at the end of 2022, shortly before Alonso was leaving the team to move to Aston Martin, the Spaniard sarcastically referred to Ocon as “our friend” over the radio.

Out of the car, asked whether he would speak to Ocon about the incident, he said: “I don’t need to. One more race. Then it’s over, finally.”

For Ocon, it’s now over at Haas, too. Finding a way back on to the grid won’t be easy.



Source link