Alpine teammates Fernando Alonso, Esteban Ocon blame each other for sprint collision

Alpine teammates Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon blamed each other for the collisions they will see at the back of the grid at Sunday’s Brazilian Grand Prix.

Alonso, who is leaving Alpine for Aston Martin next year, made contact twice with his teammate on the opening lap of Saturday’s sprint race.

Both cars were damaged and fell back in order, with Alonso finishing 15th and 18th in a car that looked competitive enough to post a strong result in the points.

Alonso radioed Alpine after the clashes: “Thanks to our friend, I lost the front wing.”

In another aired message, Alonso said: “He pushed me off at Turn 4 and then on the straight. Good job.”

The pair have visited the stewards about the incident, with the stewards relegating Alonso to 18th on the grid behind Ocon as punishment for the collision.

When asked after the sprint race if he needed to speak to Ocon to smooth things over, Alonso said, “No, not really. I do not need. There’s still one race to go and then it’s finally over!”

The two-time world champion then elaborated further on his French team-mate, citing not only several compromising incidents between them that year, but also Ocon’s collisions with then-Force India team-mate Sergio Perez and his collision with Max Verstappen at the big Prize of Brazil 2018.

“I was very close to the wall in Jeddah I think. Close to the wall in Budapest. Turn 4 here today. So, either way, these things are…sometimes it’s very competitive within a team.

“It happened to him with Perez, with Verstappen, lapping himself like that… It’s another race.”

Ocon’s take on the incident was that Alonso was to blame.

“It’s unfortunate what happened on lap one. I was trying to attack the McLaren, got on my line at Turn 4 and Fernando came out of nowhere from the outside. So we touched. From then on my race was like that good as over.”

When Alonso was told on the radio he wasn’t too calm about the incident, Ocon laughed and replied, “Well, I’m pretty calm. If he isn’t, he will be!”

To make matters worse for Alpine, Ocon’s fire caught fire after he shut it down after the race.

“The sidepod is completely open,” added the Frenchman. “I don’t know why it didn’t fly away. And the car was on fire too, so I hope it didn’t end up causing more damage.”

“I got out of the car, I walked a few steps, I went to the scales and then I saw a burning car. I thought it was the Williams, but no, it was mine… the whole body is damaged, that’s for sure. I don’t know what the consequences will be.”