After the first two Grand Prix of the 2022 season, Esteban Ocon felt content enough to claim that Alpine’s revised Power Unit has played up to the team’s expectations.

In the early stages of the race is Jeddah, the French driver fought wheel to wheel with his teammate Fernando Alonso to eventually conclude the race in P6 after the Spaniard retired with a loss of drive.

Ocon also gifted the public with some nice action battling against other cars, notably Lando Norris’ McLaren in the closing laps of the race, with his sixth-place lifting Alpine up to fourth in the early F1 world constructors' standings.

When asked by motorsport.com, Ocon was very clear: Renault has made huge steps ahead with its revised PU, especially if compared to the missing speed on the straights that characterized their 2021 season.

"The power unit is very good. I mean, we didn't have to be shy of anybody,"

"As soon as I had the DRS open I could pass, I could overtake easily the Aston of Nico [Hulkenberg], Lando in the McLaren.

"Who else? I mean Fernando of course was there. I could compare to many different cars, and it was working well for us."

Despite beating George Russell to fifth on the grid, Ocon recognized that Mercedes is still ahead in the battle to be third-fastest team on race pace.

"[Russell] was faster than us," said Ocon. "He was not pulling away as much as we thought, but he was he was still pulling away compared to us.

"So they still have a little bit of race pace advantage clearly and this is something we are going to be working on.

"I think it's been two very strong weekends for the team. Unfortunately it's a shame that Fernando didn't complete the race, because there was a double points finish for the team again. But we've been progressing.

Two-time world Champion Fernando Alonso also praised the new engine after the Jeddah race, noting: "I think we are in the ballpark now with the others. We could battle on the straights with other people, here and in Bahrain. So let's see."

After the GP, Alpine Team Principal Otmar Szafnauer highlighted that the team will have to keep up the good work in the aero development, which will be the major focus of the current season.

"The midfield is super tight," Szafnauer said. "Esteban finished best of the rest today and Fernando would have been ahead of him had he not had this problem. So from that regard, we're happy.

"However, the learning curve on this car is so steep, that it's going to be a development race. So we just have to keep adding performance to the car. It is where it is right now.

"But it's not going to be the same tomorrow, unless we add performance, at least at the same rate as the others. And what we try to do is add performance at a quicker rate than the others."

Szafnauer has also admitted that being close to Mercedes provided extra motivation for the Enstone team.

"On race pace, watching the race here, they are clearly ahead of us. I don't know, but maybe they had some issues in qualifying. We're going to push hard to try to compete with them. But sitting here today, it looks like, they probably have a better race car.

"It's a carrot to keep pushing. It will take us a few races, to have a variety of races, to really assess where we are in the pecking order. And then like I said, it will be a development race this year."

Regarding the Renault power unit, he added: "The guys at Viry, from what I see, have done a great job, and improved the powertrain. They've done wonderful work over the winter. And we have a good base to keep improving."