Esteban Ocon reveals his Alpine’s seat “broke in two” after flying at the start of the Formula 1 race in Hungary. After an unfortunate chain reaction, Ocon collided with teammate Pierre Gasly and was lifted by him. At the end of the lap both cars of the team had to retire.
The collision was triggered by Alfa Romeo’s Guanyu Zhou, who crashed into the rear of Daniel Ricciardo (AlphaTauri) while braking into Turn 1 after a poor start.
In doing so, he pushed the Australian into Ocon’s Alpine, who lost control of his vehicle and blew up on Gasly’s rear wheel.
“We were simply the victims of a strike in turn 1,” argues the Frenchman. “It was just a mistake from Zhou at the back that resulted in a huge hit. I flew up three or four meters with the rear tires and when I landed there was a huge impact.”
His seat was broken in two. “That shows how hard the impact was,” says Ocon.
Team boss Otmar Szafnauer did not want to confirm this shortly after the race, but says that something like this can happen: “I didn’t see it, but what I saw was that he went up in the air, so it doesn’t surprise me.”
A scene “like bowling”
“They’re lightweight carbon seats, and if you hit them right, they break,” said Szafnauer, for whom the incident was just bad luck: “There was nothing we could have done about it. Zhou in Ricciardo in Esteban in Pierre. Like bowling.”
But while Zhou and Ricciardo were able to continue, the race was over for the two Alpines. “Unfortunately, both cars were outside,” Ocon said angrily. “These are the consequences of starting from the back. People tend to take more risks. We knew that and we suffered from that today.”
At least he’s happy that things will continue in Spa-Francorchamps next week: “That’s a good thing, because we can quickly forget this weekend,” said the Frenchman.
Ricciardo finished 13th, Zhou was 16th and was given a five-second penalty and two penalty points for the collision because, according to the commissioners, he had “triggered a chain reaction”.
They say: “Although it was a first lap incident where some leeway is given to drivers who get caught in the middle of a line of cars, this particular incident was not one of them.”
“Zhou got off to a slow start and just didn’t slow down enough as he approached the corner, resulting in an unnecessary collision.”