Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon claimed they had buried the hatchet, but old habits die hard. The Alpine teammates had once been friends in their karting days before having a great fallout. However, they settled their differences when Gasly joined the French outfit last year. But a recent incident has brought back memories of their argument. This is because Pierre questioned Ocon’s moves at today’s Sprint Qualifying in Austria.

During SQ3 in Red Bull’s backyard, Esteban Ocon went out ahead of his teammate to clock his lap time. But the Frenchman was too slow and he held up the cars tailing him. Directly behind him was Sergio Perez, whose Quali result got severely compromised because of Ocon. And behind the Mexican, Pierre Gasly was also irritated that Esteban was moving slowly.

The Qualifying format for Sprint Races requires all the racers to finish as many laps as they want within just 8 minutes in SQ3. The best lap time of each driver would decide their rankings and the slowest ones would be in the bottom five. Since Esteban Ocon was driving too slowly, the drivers behind him could not get enough time to clock more laps to improve their timings. Naturally, Pierre Gasly was irked at his teammate for costing him a good grid position at the Austrian Sprint.

Seeing the speed of the Évreux native’s Alpine A524, Pierre Gasly told on his team radio, “What is Esteban doing?” To this, Gasly’s engineer John Howard replied that he did not know. However, it was not just the former AlphaTauri racer who dragged Esteban Ocon for holding up the cars during Qualifying. Even Sergio Perez attacked the Alpine racer for his poor speed.

Sergio Perez loses cool as Esteban Ocon holds up the grid

Every point gained during the Austrian GP can be crucial for Sergio Perez since his gap to Max Verstappen has increased to 108 points. Despite belonging to the same team, the Mexican has failed to live up to the Dutch lion’s level. So, when Esteban Ocon held him back from getting a good position for the Austrian Sprint, it frustrated Perez. He spoke to his engineer, Hugh Bird, on the team radio and exclaimed, “Yeah, who cares, man? Who cares? This guy [Esteban Ocon] is such an idiot.”

Thanks to Ocon’s slow lap, Perez had to settle for the 7th spot on the grid while his teammate Max Verstappen earned the pole. His flying lap in SQ3 was affected as the Mexican was very close to Ocon and his engineer said at turn nine, “You’re on the bubble here, you can’t back out.” Thus, Perez could not leave the lap midway and he also failed to clock a new flying lap as his eight minutes had already run out.

At the present moment, Sergio Perez has a new contract with Red Bull and Pierre Gasly has recently signed an extension with Alpine too. But Esteban Ocon is going to leave the French outfit at the end of this year. Till now, there has been no official announcement regarding his future moves. However, rumors claim Ocon might move to Haas as Kevin Magnussen’s replacement. Do you think the Frenchman might shine at the American outfit once he leaves Alpine? Share your opinions in the comments below.