At the beginning of their motorsport careers, Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon were rivals but also friends. In 2009 and 2010, the friendship between the two Frenchmen crumbled and they had nothing to say to each other for a long time. In the 2023 Formula 1 season they will be with teammates at Alpine. Both are convinced that the differences from the past will be resolved and that we can pull together to bring the team forward.
Gasly and Ocon are both 26 years old and not only are they both from France. They also come from the same region, namely Normandy. Gasly was born in Rouen in February 1996, Ocon in September of the same year in Evreux, just a few kilometers from Rouen. Their paths crossed early.
In 2008, Ocon won the junior class of the French Kart Championship. He won the title ahead of Anthoine Hubert. Gasly finished that junior kart class in France in 2008 as third overall behind Ocon and behind Hubert, who died eleven years later in the Formula 2 race at Spa-Francorchamps.
Gasly and Ocon finished another championship in the top 3 overall in 2013. In this case it was the Formula Renault Eurocup and there it was Gasly who prevailed. He took the title ahead of Oliver Rowland and Ocon, who finished third.
Formula 1: Ocon in earlier, Gasly earlier with first win
Then they parted ways. Ocon became Formula 3 Champion in 2014 and GP3 Champion in 2015. Gasly claimed the GP2 title in 2016 before going to Japan to race in Super Formula in 2017 and finish as runner-up. Ocon, on the other hand, stayed in Europe.
Ocon made his Formula 1 debut at the 2016 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa for the Manor team. He then drove for Force India and Racing Point before docking with Renault for the 2020 season. That team was renamed Alpine for the 2021 season. At the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring, Ocon celebrated its first win.
Gasly made his Formula 1 debut at the 2017 Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang for Toro Rosso. He has remained loyal to this team, which was renamed AlphaTauri for the 2020 season. His first win came at the 2020 Italian Grand Prix at Monza. In this regard, Gasly was quicker than Ocon, whose first Grand Prix victory came a year later. In 2023, Ocon and Gasly will be teammates, as was officially announced in Suzuka on Saturday.
When asked how he took the news, Ocon, as the veteran of the Alpine team, replies: “I think that’s a great story. We once started karting together. I have a lot of great memories of the time when Pierre and I was kids. Then we drifted apart a bit. He drove in other series and went to Japan. I stayed in Europe and drove for other teams. It’s great that we’ll work together in the future.”
Gasly also remembers the beginnings of karting on the sidelines of the Grand Prix of Japan. The next year’s Alpine driver can think of a very concrete story that connects him to Ocon: “We were both six years old when we did our laps on a kart track near our homes in winter. The track was covered in snow and There was no one there but the two of us. We were the only ones. We somehow managed to get out onto the track and literally did a couple of laps to warm up there.”
“At the time,” continued Gasly, “it was just a dream to get into Formula 1. We were convinced that even the chance that just one of us would make it was more or less zero.” As you know, it was to be different. But: While Gasly and Ocon were still friends when they were very young, this changed with two incidents in the kart.
Gasly remembers: What caused the friendship with Ocon to crumble
“When we were fighting for the World Cup in karting at some point, we got along a lot worse,” Gasly recalled in the official Formula 1 podcast ‘Beyond the Grid’ from October 3, 2018 and further: “I think back to a World Cup Weekend in Portugal in 2010. Cut back then [Ocon] took a turn across the grass on the last heat and beat myself that way. I then had to start the last race before the finale from a lot further back than would normally have been the case.”
“From then on we didn’t train together anymore,” says Gasly, but he admits: “In reality, the mood was already bad before that. In a race in the Bridgestone Cup in 2009, I had to start from the back because my engine initially did not start In the last corner I [Ocon] overtaken in the battle for third place. We touched. I finished third, he fourth. That was the first race in which we collided, but it was far from the last.”
Gasly and Ocon have also collided in Formula 1. In the 2018 season, the two Frenchmen crashed into each other right on the first lap at the French Grand Prix in Le Castellet: early closing time for both in front of their home crowd and a negative highlight in their mutual relationship.
Outlook for 2023 and the chance to “create great things together”
Nevertheless, both are convinced that they will work together reasonably as teammates at Alpine in 2023. “I think that’s possible,” Ocon replies in Suzuka to a corresponding question and explains: “We have the chance to create something great together. That we do a perfect job for the team and work well together, that has to be the minimum. I think everything will be fine.”
And Gasly says: “The fact that we will be driving together for a large French manufacturer in Formula 1 in the future is an incredible story. Yes, we have had our ups and downs personally, but now there is a chance that we can put our differences out of the world Anyway, I’m not worried. We’re mature enough and intelligent enough to know what’s best for us and most importantly, what’s best for the team.”
Ocon concludes: “It’s not just about me from Normandy anymore. All three are from Normandy, so me, Pierre and the brand [Alpine]. If we can take the team to the top so that Normandy wins, that would be very special.”