Esteban Ocon called out the ‘suicidal’ behaviour of several drivers on the final restart of Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix, but absolved Alpine teammate Pierre Gasly of any wrongdoing in the crash that eliminated both their cars.
Debris on the track from Kevin Magnussen’s contact with the wall late in the race triggered a safety car and then a red flag with just three laps to go.
But on the restart, Gasly ran wide at Turn 1 to avoid tagging the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso, who was eventually spun around by Carlos Sainz.
Gasly then rejoined the track in the middle of the pack and drifted into Ocon’s path, the two Alpine’s meeting with fracas and putting themselves out of the race on the spot.
The two Frenchman immediately cleared the air, with Gasly apologizing to his teammate who admitted the incident could have happened to anyone.
“Obviously a very chaotic restart then honestly, it could have been any cars that I collided with,” commented Ocon.
“There were cars coming back on the track, obviously Pierre was one of them. But no hard feelings.
“He came and apologised and as I said, it could have been anyone.”
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However, Ocon wasn’t inclined to let several other drivers off the hook for their frantic behavior on the restart, pointing the finger in particular at AlphaTauri’s Nyck de Vries, but mistakenly as it was in reality Yuki Tsunoda who had crept up the inside of the Alpine at Turn 1.
“My tyres were hot, I didn’t feel like it was very slippery,” he explained. “But what was tricky was a little bit the light being lower, we couldn’t really see so well.
“But some drivers were just suicidal a bit in Turn 1, like Nyck on the inside. It was very close and obviously there’s a lot to gain at the time, but a little bit too much for some drivers.”
Gasly, who was enjoying a productive afternoon amid the chaos and who was on track to finish fourth until his inadvertent run-in with Ocon, was thoroughly disappointed and only had a few words to offer to the media.
“All I’m going to say is that today we didn’t expect to be fighting one Ferrari and to have Fernando and [Lewis] Hamilton in my side for the majority of the race,” he commented.
“This was unexpected, but I felt very comfortable in the car.
“So that’s really positive, then after about the end of the race, nothing to mention about the red flag in the restart.
“I’m just so disappointed to say anything for now just looking at these guys finishing the race.”
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