they put god's silliest rodent in a car

jo | esteban truther | 31 55 23 81

[mecachrome]

SPANISH GP 2025 | 1st of june press conference

[estiehowells]

“I’ve never seen anyone be racist towards Esteban…”

Yes you have. You just don’t acknowledge him as a person of color so you don’t realize that it’s racist.

[brawngp2009]

Esteban Ocon | FP1 | Spain 2025

[theereboseffect]

always trust in the haasterplan.

[thecarisfucked]

“ocon’s likable now” he’s been the exact same person for 10 years

[estebanbicon]

2021 | 2025

[estebunny]

esteban ocon chasing down pierre gasly after latter's first pit stop at bahrain gp

via F1TV broadcast & driver cam

[estiehowells]

Imagine still pushing the “Ocon is a psychopath” narrative in the big year of 2025. The same Ocon who promised he’d catch and release spiders in hospitality because he knows Ollie is petrified of them? The same Ocon who goes out of his way to take time for all of his fans because he had a negative experience with someone he admired growing up and he doesn’t want his fans to feel the way he did? The same Ocon who bought his parents their dream home and his father his dream garage once he finally made it in F1 because they gave up everything for him as a child and sold their home and his father’s business so he could chase his dreams? He’s a psychopath? Do you fucking hear yourselves?? I implore you to the fuck up. Please.

[estebonocon]

I never post but I saw this textpost and was inspired lol

[estebunny]

esteban ocon's race engineer talking about his brazil gp race in the rain

via Motor Sport Magazine

[estebanbicon]

[estebanbicon]

[eocon-31]

ᯓ Translation of an excerpt from an interview with Esteban Ocon by Canal+

It's a bit of a sad ending and not the ending I wanted after 5 years of collaboration with the team. Now, this is the decision of the team who wanted to do that. It was important for my future to be able to ride with my next team also in Abu Dhabi. So the team wouldn't let me do that if I did the last race, so we had to conclude that we shouldn't do this last race and start the next chapter in the best possible way. So it's sad because I wanted to thank all the people who worked with me during these 5 years, all the engineers in Viry, in Estone.

[pinkcarsupremacy]

Just saw the comments from Oakes shaking from rage

[pinkcarsupremacy]

First of all to say that Ocon's contribution to the team has been limited lately is absolutely fucking ludicrous. It was only a month ago Esteban scored Alpine's best result this season (P2) and gained them 18 points. But sure, if you think that's limited, let's minus it from Alpine's total and you can wallow in P8 in the Constructors which is still higher than you deserve.

Secondly to imply that Esteban is somehow not 100% committed to scoring points for Alpine just because he's driving for another team next year is an insane accusation. Drivers only drive for one team their whole career do they? Anytime they go elsewhere they just throw the rest of the season away do they? Genuinely from the bottom of my heart shut the fuck up. Keep Ocon's name out of your mouth you already kicked him out of the team early you got what you want so stop fucking dragging his name and reputation through the mud.

[formulaheart]

something is so funny to me about lewis getting everybody to come to dinner and then promptly making fun of lando in no less than 6 screenshots, the unemployed guy paying, max and george sitting on opposite sides of the table and LANDO pointing it out as a bit, and then both their teammates standing between them when they take a group photo, everybody on the grid posting the exact same photo and OSCAR pointing it out, everybody's comments on the posts, it's just pure chaos in one image

[toffee-and-tandoori]

it's been nearly 24 hours since esteban released his statement and i still can't get over how masterfully crafted it was, how carefully and intentionally it was phrased. i've seen a number of people pick up on a lot of the subtle jabs esteban carefully laced into his statement but as someone who's been following this from the jump, it is honestly amazing how many zingers there are. in case anyone hasn't been following the whole saga and therefore may not have caught on to everything, i'll try my best to dissect the statement (also selfishly i want to have this preserved on my blog)

the pride of having been the driver who brought the team’s best results since its return to the sport

i first saw this on reddit but since alpine/renault returned to the sport in 2020, esteban was the teammate who scored the highest result for the team every year. from 2020 onwards, alpine/renault's highest results of the season are as follows:

2020 - esteban finishing 2nd at sakhir

2021 - esteban finishing 1st in hungary

2022 - esteban finishing 4th at suzuka

2023 - esteban finishing 3rd in monaco (tied with pierre finishing 3rd in zandvoort)

2024 - esteban finishing 2nd in brazil (obligatory disclaimer that there's one race to go)

climbing the top two steps of the podium in bahrain, hungary, and brazil

esteban intentionally leaves out his podium in monaco here as it allows him to point out that since alpine/renault's return to the sport in 2020, esteban is actually the only driver to have scored 1st or 2nd place for the team.

daniel's two podiums in 2020, fernando's podium in 2021, and pierre's podiums in 2023 and 2024 were all 3rd places. and nico...yeah...

it has not been an easy year on track for the team and the second part of the season has been especially difficult. for various reasons.

compared to the first half of the season, alpine actually made improvements to the car as evidenced by pierre AND esteban both making it into q2 more consistently as well as the excellent performances by both in brazil and by pierre in qatar. not to mention that alpine's first point of the season was esteban's p10 in miami, the SIXTH race of the season.

yet esteban is still saying the second part of the season was ESPECIALLY difficult. for various reasons. (notice how that's a separate phrase).

i believe these "various reasons" are alluding to how the qualifying head-to-head has flipped DRASTICALLY since esteban officially signed with haas...which coincides perfectly with briatore officially signing on as an advisor. canal+ has implied on their broadcasting that esteban's side believes there is an issue with the car hampering his performance but he has been prohibited to talk about it publicly. another time esteban reported an issue with the car was back in 2021 when he stated there was an issue with his chassis. at the time alpine altered the chassis with esteban's feedback in mind...hungary 2021 closely followed.

i want to say here that i do think that pierre and esteban are so evenly matched it's ridiculous but i will note that i think pierre has the SLIGHT advantage when it comes to qualifying pace while esteban has the SLIGHT advantage when it comes to overtake racecraft (though both are still very talented at both). so i do expect pierre to be faster in qualifying. and since esteban is leaving the team while pierre is staying it does make logical sense to develop the car more to pierre's liking. however, the gap between esteban and pierre in qualifying has NEVER been as large as it is now.

i do not regret a single thing knowing i gave it 100% every single session. like i always have.

according to some comments on reddit, flavio has alleged there were concerns that esteban's "lack of performance" may have been on purpose to help haas secure 6th in the constructor's. apparently flavio does not know basic math considering without esteban's 2nd place in brazil, alpine wouldn't even be close to fighting for 6th in the constructor's...

also if you know ANYTHING about esteban it's that he would never purposefully compromise his own performance. his statement here is making that explicitly clear.

as you know, the plan was always to race one last time this weekend and personally say goodbye to you all next week. i was looking forward to both of those things. this is not how i wanted things to end.

the most damning parts of esteban's statement. here he is directly contradicting the initial reports stating that this was a pre-planned "mutual decision" between esteban and the team (with some people somehow trying to even claim that esteban came up with this solution...). the initial plan was for esteban to race in abu dhabi, visit the factory to say goodbye to everyone at viry and enstone, and then participate in the post-season test with haas. a plan that was apparently settled weeks before the last-minute switch esteban was informed about HOURS before the qatar gp.

i would like to first and foremost thank the mechanics and engineers across all functions at the track, enstone, and viry-châtillon who have raced alongside me these last five seasons. we have shared so much together, and i am proud to call many of you my friends. hundreds of hard-working men and women at enstone and viry i would also like to wish nothing but great things to my friend jack

i saw someone on reddit point out that esteban "thanked the people he worked with, not the people he worked for" and i can't think of a better way to phrase it than that. esteban will always have love for alpine/renault because the people he worked alongside. but rightfully so, none of the love extends to alpine's higher management.

[macaiv]

Source: Racer Magazine - Chris Medland

Source: Joe Saward Green Notebook Blog