Alpine 'would like to have less competition on track' between Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon

Fernando Alonso revealed that Alpine senior management had a chat with him and his teammate Esteban Ocon after the two battled in Saudi Arabia. It was one of the better battles of the season between the two teammates but it was very close and the two did come close to crashing multiple times as well.

While the drivers appeared to be fine with having such battles in the future, Fernando Alonso revealed in an interview with Channel 4 that the Alpine management had rounded up the drivers and requested to keep it safer in the future.

The Spaniard said:

“For us it was fine, for our bosses it was a little too close. We respect each other a lot, but it is true that Laurent [Rossi, Alpine CEO] and Otmar [Szafnauer, team principal] after the race they said ‘maybe that was too close and I know you both trust each other, but we would like to have less competition on track.”

When questioned on what he thought about the performance of his teammate Esteban Ocon, Fernando Alonso was full of praise for the Frenchman, saying:

“Very impressive. I think last year also we saw how fast he was, how talented he was. You know when you have a team-mate, you know, puts all the effort in the simulator, shares with me the results that they get there, you want someone like this in the team because you will move forward quickly. So I love working with him and hopefully we can help Alpine as much as we can.”

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I love racing!: Fernando Alonso on his return to F1

When questioned on why he returned after his sabbatical of two years and what drove him to make a return, Alonso had just a simple reply that he loved racing and thought he was capable of doing it at a very high level.

He said:

“I love racing, and even I stopped [for] two sabbatical years from Formula 1, I was racing every weekend in different series. I love racing, that’s probably the first priority, and the second is that I feel at my 100% now, I feel fit, I feel sharp, I feel motivated. It will feel wrong to be in my home watching television and not sitting here, because I feel that I can still do this.”

The 40-year-old further elaborated that everything had changed during his hiatus, including the way racing was approached, but still, in essence, it was the same sport. He said:

“Everything has changed, not only the cars but also the way we approach racing, I think it’s much more professional now. It’s just different, but in the heart of competition it’s still the same DNA, competing against the others.”

Fernando Alonso is in the final year of his contract with Alpine and it remains to be seen if he will extend his stay with the team or move elsewhere.