F1 | Future teammates Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly have been feuding for years

Alpine F1 driver Esteban Ocon26, wished his future teammate Pierre Gaslyn, 26, welcome to the team. He shared a cute pair of photos of the duo on Twitter.

In the first shot, Ocon and Gasly laugh together as children, and in the second, they pose together now as adults.

“We were just two little kids from Normandy with an impossible dream. Welcome to the Alpine family Pierrot. Let’s give our team and country something to be proud of,” Ocon wrote in his tweet.

The French drivers are the same age and from the same region, so they have known each other well since childhood. Gasly and Ocon were good friends when they were younger, but on the threshold of adulthood, the relationship between the two cooled off completely.

In the year 2018 Gasly opened up about the reasons for the double harness break Race fansin an interview with the website.

“I started beating him [Oconin]and he didn’t like it, so we’re not friends anymore.”

Gasly said that the two were very close in their karting days, but when moving to formula races, the gaps started to grow.

“When we were 9-10 years old, we used to go karting in the snow. We always drove five laps and then went inside because it was so cold.”

“We have spent a lot of time together, but at some point he [Ocon] started to get so upset that it wasn’t nice anymore. Then we just stopped hanging out together. Since then, there has been quite a lot of competition between us.”

Ocon debuted in Formula 1 with a Manor car already in 2016. Since then, he has driven for Force India and Renault, which later changed its name to Alpine.

Gasly drove his first F1 years from 2017 to 2019 with Toro Rosso and in the 2019 season jumped to the reins of Red Bull. However, the experiment in the top team did not go as hoped, and Gasly was returned to Toro Rosso in the middle of the season, which later changed its name to AlphaTauri.

Newly former formula driver Ralf Schumacher claimed in a TV interview, that the background of the hatred was interpersonal drama from years ago. According to Schumacher, Gasly would have taken Ocon’s girlfriend.

Whatever the reason for the break, now is the time for Gasly and Ocon to put their grudges behind them.

Alpine team manager Otmar Szafnauer told recently Motorsport.comwebsite that the matter has been discussed with both drivers.

“Esteban took the matter really well, as did Pierre. They are professionals and have no problem working together.”

“Hopefully their friendship will blossom again, because at some point they were friends. From a professional point of view, they are happy to work with each other.”

On Saturday morning it was announced that Gasly will transfer from AlphaTauri to Alpine with a multi-year contract. The Frenchman’s place will be replaced by the one who made his successful debut at the Monza GP Nyck de Vries.