The Sprint Race in Brazil has been completed and Alpine driver Esteban Ocon feels positive and confident after his ninth-place finish. Before the Sprint race took place, Ocon had put down the fourth-fastest time in the FP2 session while his teammate Fernando Alonso topped the charts with the fastest time ahead of both Max Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas. 

For the Frenchman, the team’s aggressive strategy to start the Sprint race on new soft tyres as opposed to the mediums that many other teams choose,  not only paid off but ultimately revealed the car’s strong pace as well.

“It’s been a good race, a very positive day for all of us in the team. You know, meaning that the car pace is actually really good. We had a good launch taking an aggressive strategy and we put pressure on the Alpha Tauri until the end so more to come tomorrow” stated Ocon after the sprint race.

“It felt great, I had a good getaway and managed to go around the outside of Turn 1 with Daniel (Ricciardo) and get him around Turn 2 and from then on it was as it's called a sprint to the end and it was good fun.” 

“Our race pace looks strong, we have another free choice on starting tyre for tomorrow so we’ll assess our options and see what we can do in the race.”

After a promising and solid start, Ocon admits that a combination of the car's slower pace by the end of the race and running out of laps were the key factors to not being able to overtake Alpha Tauri’s Pierre Gasly. 

“We obviously had quite a slower place towards the end especially Gasly that was holding up pretty much everyone behind so yeah a couple of more laps and we could've got him on that one but we still have a chance tomorrow.”

Alpine and AlphaTauri are tied on 106 points each in the constructor’s championship. The São Paulo GP will be a crucial race for the Alpine divers to gain as many points as possible to try and claim fifth place in the constructor’s standings at the end of the season. 

Overall it was a solid Sprint race for Ocon and the Alpine Team. Their car proved to be competitive over the course of the 24 lap stint on the Interlagos circuit and Ocon knows what needs to be done on race day for the São Paulo GP.  

"We know how important it is for the constructor’s championship, we’re going to focus on our race as we always do, try and move forward, and see what we can do.”

"It was very positive today and it’s promising signs ahead of tomorrow. The car felt competitive so the aim will be to carry that forward for the main race.”