Esteban Ocon says the "super tight" racing in 2022 triggered his strong defence against Fernando Alonso in Saudi Arabia.
The two Alpine drivers enjoyed an incredible battle in the opening laps at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, beginning with Ocon perhaps pushing the limits with a late move to block his teammate on the main straight.
Even when Alonso did eventually get ahead, the Frenchman continued the duel until the pit wall intervened.
"It’s always a privilege to race with Fernando so makes me smile," Ocon said post-race.
An inch-perfect fight between @alo_oficial and @OconEsteban 😱#SaudiArabianGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/O3i4Caa7Mc
— Formula 1 (@F1) March 28, 2022
"In the end, you always want to make your quickest overall lap time in the race. In a one-stop, it’s pretty important. But track position is also quite important.
“Honestly, it’s super tight now with the cars, we can follow each other very closely," he added to Canal +.
“Suddenly, the best defence is to attack, and there was Valtteri [Bottas] behind so it was important to keep the position in front.
“Afterwards the team told me to hold position. Basically, we had to be… we could run if there weren’t too many things going on, if there was no contact. That’s what we did.
“It’s good, it pushes the performance of the team and it’s interesting. We have to continue like this.”
Alonso himself put a brave face on the battle suggesting "everything was fine" but maybe Ocon needed to "give extra margin".
Alpine boss Otmar Szafnauer though was happy.
"It was fine, it was clean," he was quoted by The Race. "It’s what the fans want to see and we told them at the beginning, we’ll allow them to race.
"We were losing a little bit more time than anticipated," he added on the decision to ask Ocon to hold position.
"That’s a little bit because of the track-specific stuff here and a little bit because the cars can follow each other easier now, which was the aim of the new regulations.
"And because of it, if you can follow easier, you can start overtaking each other one lap after the next."
P7 and P6 in the opening two races represent an encouraging start for Ocon, who currently sits sixth in the Drivers' standings, although Alpine did miss out on more points as Alonso retired with an engine issue in Jeddah.
“Two very good weeks, we’re scoring a lot of points on our side of the garage, and that’s great,” Esteban noted.
“It would have been a very good result too if Fernando hadn’t had any problems. It’s very good for the team and we have to continue in this direction.”
