The 2024 Formula One season was not one many at Alpine planned to look back on fondly.
In a year of transition at the top, tough decisions off the track and a struggle for performance on it, you could forgive if some at the team felt heading to Interlagos that they could not wait for the season to end.
But one day and one race changed everything as Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly, drivers with their own complicated backstory, joined Max Verstappen on the podium.
“I’m not sure if this is a reality or still a dream,” Ocon said after the race. “But I smell champagne, so I think it is reality.”
The rain-soaked Sao Paulo Grand Prix presented the opportunity for an unlikely result that would mean more to the smaller teams than the bigger ones, a rare chance to get into the higher points positions typically hogged by the quicker cars in ‘normal’ dry races.
After qualifying, RB seemed the team most likely to seize that opportunity, with Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson starting third and fifth on the grid. In the context of its battle for sixth in the championship with Haas, which lost both cars in Q1, it had the chance to leave Brazil with a significant points gap.
Each constructors’ championship position gained brings with it a big change in prize money, worth in the region of $12 million to $15 million. For the smaller teams, that can make a huge, huge difference in car and team development.
Alpine also had an opportunity in its battle for P8 with Williams. While it’s not the territory the team wanted to spend this year in, that has been its reality. The team had scored just 14 points through the first 20 rounds of this season. At the same point in 2023, the team had earned 108 points.
Pierre Gasly’s drive to seventh in the sprint on Saturday gave it two points, cutting the gap to Williams down to a single point. Ocon then starred in qualifying, grabbing P4 on the grid, while Alex Albon’s qualifying crash forced Williams to withdraw his car and only field Franco Colapinto in the race. Alpine knew this would be the chance to move up to eighth.
Little did the team know that it could set its sights much, much higher.
Ocon and Gasly both owe their lone grand prix victories to unusual races that got turned on their heads by a red flag. This race would require a similar degree of opportunism — and brilliance behind the wheel.
Ocon stayed composed in the early stages to retain fourth place, stuck in a train behind Tsunoda. He picked off the RB just before heavier rain prompted the lead duo of George Russell and Lando Norris to pit, promoting Ocon, who stayed out, to the front ahead of Verstappen. Gasly had also worked his way into the top 10, running a few seconds behind the Red Bull.
Max Verstappen, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly lead the field at the São Paulo GP. (HOCH ZWEI)
Alpine decided to keep both its drivers out instead of pitting for fresh tires. A decision which, similar to Verstappen and Red Bull, paid off when the race was red-flagged due to Colapinto’s crash on Lap 32. It gave all three drivers a free tire change, meaning Ocon and Gasly could resume in P1 and P3 without needing to stop again.
Ocon initially began to pull away from Verstappen when the race resumed, only for a safety car to bunch the field and give the Red Bull driver another chance at passing. Ocon didn’t put up much of a fight at Turn 1, knowing it would be difficult to keep Verstappen at bay for long.
He and Gasly, who faced late pressure from Russell, held firm in tricky conditions, seeing out the final 25 laps of the race to secure second and third place. A haul of 33 points, greater than any other team managed on Sunday and twice Alpine’s total pre-race total — not to mention two pieces of silverware no one in the team would have expected to lift this year.
“We had such a tough season, we struggled to score points,” Gasly said. “In these conditions, everything was possible. We believed it until the end. Two cars on the podium — I don’t think anyone would have got that on that bingo card ahead of the season. So it’s just fantastic.”
Alpine has been through a tough year. It is under new management, with executive advisor Flavio Briatore and new team principal Oliver Oakes now holding the reins. It is moving away from its works team status after its parent company, Renault, decided to stop making F1 engines at the end of 2025. Even for a team so frequently in transition, this year has brought a lot of dramatic shifts.
Oakes told The Athletic in Mexico about his confidence in the group of people at Enstone and spoke on Sky Sports after the podium about the result’s significance.
“The last 12, 18 months weren’t what the team is all about,” he said. “But honestly, I can say since I arrived, it’s been so strong. You can see the spirit in the team, and those last few races, it’s been amazing.”
49 seconds of PURE EMOTION. pic.twitter.com/bVdd6sRGj6
— BWT Alpine Formula One Team (@AlpineF1Team) November 3, 2024
Brazil has changed Alpine’s season. Those 33 points lifted it above Williams in the constructors’ championship and ahead of Haas and RB, too, all the way up to sixth place. A three-place gain that could be worth in the region of $40 million in prize money if it can hold on until the end of the season. “I’m sure Flavio will be on my case now, saying, ‘Keep it up!’” Oakes joked.
Maintaining that position will be challenging, given the pace of Haas and RB, and only five points cover all three teams. It at least gives Alpine a chance, having made some decent progress with its car of late to become a points threat again in normal conditions.
For Ocon, the result also gave a final hurrah for his long relationship with the Enstone team, stretching back a decade to before he was even in F1. The Frenchman will leave after Abu Dhabi to join Haas for 2025, but now has a fourth F1 podium, all scored with Alpine, to show for this year. “If that’s the reward, then I’m very happy to call it that this is the reward,” Ocon said.
On the cool-down lap, Ocon admitted his mind went back to when he and Gasly would be out on the go-kart track together, braving the weather to hone their skills, dreaming one day of racing in F1. While there has been friction between the pair in the past, even as recently as Monaco this year when they collided on-track, to see them embrace and do their post-race interviews side-by-side was a wholesome moment.
“A lot of flashbacks came back to my mind — when we were racing on the wet in go-karts, when we were young, even in the snow with the slick tires, we were both racing together and waiting for the podium or the win to come,” Ocon said. “Today, it tastes a bit like that. (A) beautiful story from where we come from, and that one will for sure forever stay engraved (in my mind).”
Gasly agreed. “I don’t think anyone can understand,” he said. “You know, it’s a very personal relationship between Esteban and myself. But we’ve been going through so much.”
He admitted he and Ocon “had our ups and downs” but took pride in the collective effort to get the result. “This two years chapter as team-mates, I think we can be very proud of the way we’ve pushed the team forward. It’s been tough, obviously, this season, but we’ve always tried to push the team in the right direction to never give up.
“On a day like today, even when the car has misbehaved for the majority of the season, everyone tried to put (on) the ‘A game,’” he said. “It was just a historical day for the team.”
The two kids from Normandy had made it to the podium together. In doing so, it has transformed Alpine’s season.
GO DEEPER
How Alpine’s Oliver Oakes went from karting glory to F1’s youngest team boss
Top photo: Clive Mason/Getty Images
