Alpine Derby: Gasly one point ahead, but Ocon wins in the comparison

French Duel

In the very difficult 2024 season experienced so far by the Alpine team, currently only eighth in the Constructors’ standings at the halfway point of the summer break with 11 points won – against the 73 he had after the same number of races in 2023 and the 115 in 2022 – the only real element of sporting interest seems to be theThe direct comparison between the two drivers of the team, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly.

The two transalpines, rivals since they were kids, have shown similar performances and in the Drivers’ standings they are one behind the other: Gasly collected six points and Ocon five. However, this difference is weighed down by a discussed team order given by the pit wall in Canada, when the future Haas driver had to leave ninth position to his teammate, finishing tenth at the finish line.

Off-track tensions

Also due to the tensions that emerged with Ocon on a human level on the part of the team’s management, Alpine has decided to focus on Pierre Gasly for the futurerenewing his contract and leaving the #31 free to join Ayao Komatsu in the team founded by Gene Haas, which is currently just ahead of Alpine in the standings.

Ocon better in ‘head-to-head’

However, analyzing the direct comparison between the drivers this year, it turns out that Ocon was slightly better overall than Gasly: in qualifying, in fact, the native of Évreux leads the head-to-head with a 10-4 advantage, which for the moment overturns the 14-8 with which Gasly won the one-lap comparison in 2023.

In the race, however, the trend of 2023 is confirmed: last year, despite obtaining fewer points, Ocon beat Gasly on 10 occasions out of 16 when both had reached the finish line. The same is happening in these first 14 GPs of 2024: In 10 races completed by both Ocon was ahead six times. The numbers however indicate how both are very close to each other in terms of performance, unfortunately not at all supported by a car that is not up to par.