Little to separate Alpine’s duelling duo after two years as team mates · RaceFans

When Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly delivered a dream second and third for Alpine respectively in Brazil, it provided a positive coda to a partnership which had not always been constructive.

Eyebrows were raised when Alpine hired Gasly to join Ocon at the beginning of next year. Not least because the circumstances of his arrival were far from ideal for the team, which had been stung by the loss not only of two-times world champion Fernando Alonso, but also its highly rated junior driver Oscar Piastri, who is now a race-winner for McLaren.

But Gasly’s hiring also reunited him with a driver he hasn’t always seen eye-to-eye with. Stories abounded of how the young French racers clashed during their junior careers.

However the pair generally played nicely in their first season as team mates. Flashpoints did occur: There was a wholly unnecessary collision in Australia, where Gasly was remarkably lucky to avoid a penalty. Later in the year Gasly railed at some of the team’s internal decision-making, notably when he was told to hold station behind Ocon at Suzuka. Despite that, he narrowly out-scored Ocon over the course of the year.

At the start of their second season together the drivers were aghast to discover how uncompetitive the team’s new A523 was. The question of which driver might score the most points wasn’t a consideration over the opening rounds as they seldom threatened the top 10.

So it was easy to understand the team’s frustration when, after both drivers scored their best qualifying positions of the season to date in Monaco, Ocon lunged at Gasly on the first lap in a wildly over-optimistic move. Soon afterwards word came that Ocon would not remain at the team for a sixth year.

With Ocon heading for the exit, Gasly tended to get first call on new parts. That goes some way towards explaining why the balance of power tipped in his favour towards the end of the season, having previously been quite evenly split between the two.

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Then opportunity knocked in Brazil: The Alpine drivers were two of just four who never had the opportunity to pit under a mid-race Virtual Safety Car period in pouring rain. They stayed out, along with Max Verstappen, and the trio filled the podium. Ocon came out ahead of the two Alpine drivers partly thanks to the uncompromising move he pulled on his team mate in qualifying earlier that day which led to Gasly’s Q2 elimination – an incident which might…