For the first time since the pair started sharing the Formula 1 grid, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly joined each other on the podium of a grand prix, capitalising on a bold strategy in a wet Interlagos classic to finish second and third behind the untouchable Max Verstappen.
It was a huge boost to Alpine, the team gaining three places in the constructors’ championship and finally getting a tangible reward for the hard work of its crew after a bruising season with the underperforming 2024 car.
The scintillating Sao Paulo classic was not just season-defining for Alpine: on a human level, it will also forever define Ocon’s and Gasly’s at times fraught relationship.
Growing up close to each other in eastern Normandy, Ocon and Gasly crossed paths as kids and became best friends, spending lots of time together racing go-karts.
As they moved up the ladder their relationship soured, seemingly beyond repair, and therefore Gasly joining Ocon as a team-mate at Alpine for 2023 raised some eyebrows in the paddock. Ocon admitted “we are never going to be best friends” at the time, while Gasly acknowledged his relationship would be vastly different to the one he enjoyed with Yuki Tsunoda before.
Esteban Ocon, Alpine F1 Team, 2nd position, Pierre Gasly, Alpine F1 Team, 3rd position, celebrate in Parc Ferme
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Naturally there have been some flashpoints on track, just like Ocon had with some previous team-mates – Fernando Alonso and Sergio Perez – and both drivers fought their corner hard over team strategy as you would expect any F1 racers to do.
In 2023 there was a collision in Melbourne, in their fourth race together, and this year the pair also came to blows when Ocon lunged down the inside of Gasly in Monaco, damaging both cars and angering both Gasly and Alpine’s management. Soon after Ocon announced his departure from the team, signing with Haas for 2025, which defused some of the tension but also seemed to acknowledge that Ocon’s arrival at the Enstone team hadn’t really worked out for either party.
But while the pair has always maintained they work well together off-track, it feels like their wholesome podium in Brazil has further thawed their once frosty relations. They didn’t just revel in their hard-earned success on the back of an abysmal year with Alpine, but the perilous wet race in Interlagos appeared to unlock a warm feeling of nostalgia to better days. A time when they were also racing at the front in fraught conditions, as 10-year-old prodigies of Normandy’s go-karting scene.
As the pair gave a joint interview in front of broadcaster Viaplay’s cameras, Ocon turned to his fellow Norman: “Do you remember when we were driving in Anneville in the rain?”, to which Gasly revealed their race had brought back the same memories.
“Yeah, even in the snow! We were driving in the snow and the rain. It’s the same as it was back in the day when we were the only ones showing up at the track in the rain, freezing cold. But it was all worth it.”
“It paid off today,” Ocon nodded after his car control in the Brazilian rain yielded him second. “When we did that formation and the in-lap, that was the first thing that came to my mind. What a beautiful story, that.”
Even back when Gasly joined Ocon at Alpine last year, the significance of their unlikely pairing was not lost on them. Two kids from the same part of France – Gasly from the Rouen area and Ocon from the nearby town of Evreux – both making it through the complicated journey to Formula 1 to end up as team-mates.
Now they have another fond memory to look back on after their careers, when perhaps their rivalry will be a relic of the past.
“This is the moment of a lifetime,” said Gasly. “As kids from where we came from, to end up as team-mates was already against all odds, but to end up on the same podium…
“Nobody knows our story, it’s something personal to us. But regardless of everything that happened, a day like today makes it very special.
“It’s a beautiful story.”