Formula 1 had a few weeks off between the Miami Grand Prix earlier this month and the Canadian Grand Prix coming this weekend, and one of the big stories in that time had to do with Haas and driver Esteban Ocon.
Despite the team performing well so far this season, there were reports and rumors of a rift between the French driver and the American Formula 1 team, including team boss Ayao Komatsu.
However, that isn’t the case according to Ocon, and he had a very funny reason for not believing the reports.
ZERO BS. JUST DAKICH. TAKE THE DON’T @ ME PODCAST ON THE ROAD. DOWNLOAD NOW!
“The stories have been fabricated with no foundation. There were no real sources in there. I’ve joined this team because of Ayao, because I’ve known him for so long,” Ocon said on Thursday in Montreal, per Formula 1. “He’s been my first race engineer in F1, and he’s going to set the record straight later in the media.
“There was no dispute in Miami, but when I read the article that kicked it all off, they call him ‘Ryo Komatsu,’ so as soon as I read that, I stopped reading.”
Ocon butting heads with his team or teammates wouldn’t be a new thing, but yeah, goofing up one of the key players’ names so badly is one hell of a credibility killer.
While there may not be a full-on rift, according to Ocon, the pressure is still going to be on him. One of the biggest measuring sticks in F1 is your teammate, and through four Grand Prix and two Sprints, Ocon’s teammate Ollie Bearman has scored 17 of the team’s 18 points.
Clearly, the team has a car that is capable of competing toward the front of the midfield, but they’ll need both drivers scoring regularly to keep up with an Alpine team that has performed really well this season (it’s amazing what ditching that lousy Renault power unit and replacing it with a Mercedes can do, huh?).
Alpine currently leads Haas for P5 in the constructors’ standings 23-18, but, of course, there’s a long way to go.
