"Alpine F1 team has ruined my life": Fans react as the French team confirms Esteban Ocon's pitlane start

After Alpine withdrew their car from the Parc Ferme conditions, Esteban Ocon will start from the pit lane in Azerbaijan.

Esteban Ocon will now start both the Sprint race on Saturday and the Grand Prix on Sunday from the pit lane.

According to Formula 1 rules, a car's setup is fixed before qualifying, hence any parc ferme withdrawal necessitates a pit lane start for both the Sprint and the Grand Prix.

F1 fans reacted to the Alpine team's latest decision with the Sprint race in a couple of hours.

Some fans stated that Alpine can't catch a break after a horrible double DNF in Australia.

It is Alpine's latest setback following a difficult weekend. Pierre Gasly, Ocon's teammate at Alpine, experienced an engine failure in practice and crashed out of qualifying. Gasly then experienced an exhaust leak in SQ1, which caused his running to be cut short and put him back on the back row of the grid.

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“Not the Best Day” - Esteban Ocon reflects on Baku weekend

A new floor, rear wing, front wind, and modifications to the rear suspension were among the several new additions the crew made for the competition.

Esteban Ocon claims that despite the improvements, the team will want to forget that particular day. Ocon discussed his dependability issues throughout practice and how the red flags affected how the qualifying went.

He also listed certain track-specific flaws, implying that the A523 hops a lot on Baku's uneven street circuit.

"It’s not the best day, it’s clear. We had some reliability problems during the EL1s that prevented us from driving as much as we wanted."

Ocon continued:

"On the qualification, it was not bad in Q1 but our tour was not validated because of the red flag. So we were trying to complete a time as quickly as possible and we didn’t have the best performance there."

Esteban Ocon's frustration is understandable given that he anticipated more from the car and its new enhancements. Pierre Gasly, however, was unable to recover from his qualifying accident. After the crash in Melbourne, Pierre attempted reconciliation, but instead received further accidents and dependability problems.

Pierre Gasly shared his dissatisfaction and displeasure. He implied that everyone in the team had a difficult day. The hydraulic problem was the first to manifest itself, causing the back of the car to burn and steam.

The car was just about ready for qualifying when Gasly crashed it into the wall coming out of turn 3 because it was going faster than necessary. Sprint qualifying didn't go as planned for him as he will be starting the sprint race in 19th after getting knocked out of SQ1 due to an exhaust leak problem.