Ocon ‘pretty confident’ Alpine can fight Ferrari and McLaren in Monaco

Esteban Ocon is “pretty confident” Alpine can continue its recent run of qualifying performances to battle Ferrari and Mclaren for best-of-the-rest honours in Monaco.

Formula 1 is returning to Monte Carlo this weekend after the 2020 event was cancelled due to the pandemic, marking the first time since 1954 the series hadn’t raced on the street circuit.

Despite a slow start to the season, Alpine has scored points at the last three grand prix’s, elevating it to fifth in the constructors’ championship.

The French outfit’s pace over one lap has been evident having got at least one car into the top-10 at every race so far in 2021.

Ocon, who qualified fifth at the Spanish Grand Prix, is optimistic Alpine can repeat its qualifying heroics this weekend, even if its race pace is not as strong as its rivals.

“Until we put the car there and we do the qualifying we will not know exactly, but I think looking at our performance in qualifying we should be in good shape in Monaco,” Ocon said, as quoted by Crash.net.

“I hope that we are going to be able to perform as good, so I think we can give a fight to the Ferraris and the other cars around in qualifying. I’m pretty confident.

“The place we have to focus – the race – in Monaco it’s hard to overtake so it’s less of a critical point, but yes I think we are a bit slower than Ferrari and a bit slower than McLaren at the moment on pure pace in the race.”

Asked about Alpine’s chances of a podium this season, Ocon conceded on “pure pace” the feat was unlikely, despite the team scoring three rostrums in its final year racing under the Renault guise.

“I think anything is possible in the race,” Ocon said. “Last year when Daniel did the podium there’s been some things happening in the race, when I got the podium in Bahrain there have been some things happening in the race.

“On pure pace and if everybody is on track, no we are not fast enough for the podium yet, but we will push to make it happen as we did last year. So it’s not going to be easy but anything can happen in these crazy years that we are living in.”