Esteban Ocon Reacts to Fernando Alonso’s Class Gesture at United States GP Qualifying

It’s been a team effort all around for Alpine as the crew has their eyes set on scoring points on Sunday. To increase the likeliness of that happening, Fernando Alonso tried giving his teammate a little boost in Q2 of the qualifying session in Austin; hoping to push Esteban Ocon to the final round.

Although Alonso will start his race from the back of the grid, the Spaniard was making laps around the COTA during the qualifying session. This was after getting a new PU following his problems on Friday.

As the clock closed in on the Q2 session, Alonso got ahead of his teammate, to give him a slipstream. Although Ocon missed out on the final qualifying session, the Frenchman respected the move. As Fernando Alonso made his way to the pits, his team radio lit up. “That was a nice back straight, I tell you!”

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As Ocon completed his final lap around the circuit, he thanked his teammate. “Thanks for the tow anyway, good teamwork!” 

However, this may not have been an impromptu move on the duo’s part. Towards the end of the practice session earlier on Saturday, Alonso was seen giving his teammate a tow towards the final corners. It looks like Alonso will do whatever it takes to push his team ahead! A class move on the champion’s part.

Fernando Alonso gets ready to charge through the grid

Following his penalty for the fourth PU of the season, Fernando Alonso will have a long journey to the points on Sunday. Alonso brought out the first red flag of the weekend in FP1 on Friday; this resulted from smoke emitting from his chassis at the beginning of the session. Although the problem was fixed, FP2 brought its problems.

In the next practice session, Alonso locked up and found himself in the barriers. This only added to the work that needed to be done to fix the electric blue car.

Ahead of qualifying, Alpine announced that to save the car, the team had to install a fourth combustion engine, one more than what the drivers were permitted.

This shouldn’t be too much of a problem for El Leon, who is sure to make use of every gap he finds during the race on Sunday. As the master overtaker gets ready for a thrilling US GP, it will be quite a show!

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