Ocon’s new challenge
Different atmospheres at Alpine on the eve of the Italian Grand Prix, with Pierre Gasly arriving in Monza after his 9th place at Zandvoort and Esteban Ocon coming off a rather negative weekend in Holland. For the Frenchman, future Haas driver, the time has come to focus on the ‘Temple of Speed’, and in particular on a track that is almost an unknown quantity for the drivers, given the top-level changes such as the new asphalt: “I think that It will be very interesting because obviously we have known Monza for years – Ocon explained to the media present – It is a track that has not changed for four years. It is therefore a completely new challenge in terms of tyre degradation, the handling of the car and how we use everything. It will be fundamentally different. Probably, with the grip that we have, we can lower the wing level even further. It will be an interesting challenge.”
What you don’t like
A circuit that will retain question marks until the first Free Practice sessions on Friday, when Ocon will be able to answer his first doubts: “I saw some videos on YouTube of the first chicane, which has changed a bit – he continued – some curvesto tell the truth, I don’t like them very muchespecially the Ascari, which is quite flat. Hopefully it hasn’t taken away all the character of the track. There are some differences that you can already notice, but obviously you won’t feel them until you actually drive it. It’s much more similar to Melbourne than Monzawhich used to be a very rough track. So, on the wet it would be very slippery, on the dry it would be very grippy.”
How to redeem yourself from Zandvoort
It’s not an easy weekend for Alpine and Ocon. In addition to the protests by Viry employees in Monza (with the driver hoping for talks between the parties involved), the #31 will have to recover from his last lackluster performance in Zandvoort, even if he doesn’t think this is an easy goal to achieve: “I don’t think there’s a very simple way to solve things. – he concluded – We will work as best we can to resolve the issue and return to our previous performance. Pierre (Gasly) doesn’t seem to have the same problem. The pace wasn’t good enough on our side, that’s for sure. There wasn’t a set-off problem as such. It’s not a difference in setup. The cars should be identicalbut there was clearly a performance deficits we have never seen before at this time of year. This is what we are working on.”
#Ocon #face #interesting #challenge
