The incident between Ocon and Hamilton took place shortly after the Briton’s first stop, when he was one of the first drivers to fit the intermediate tyres. At the pitlane exit, the Mercedes driver ran into an Alpine that was still on extreme wet tires and was trying to survive on those tires until it had a chance to switch to slicks.
The seven-time world champion approached his rival on the approach to Sainte-Dévote , and when he saw that the Frenchman, still partially ahead, was going to turn without letting up, he tried to continue on the inside, but his rival had not let him no space.
The contact was then inevitable between the rear right tire of the A522 and the front left of the W13, without the incident causing more than a little lost time for both. After an investigation, the result of which was known shortly after the resumption of the race after the second red flag, the stewards decided to impose a five-second penalty on the Frenchman, whom they considered the main person responsible for the collision.
That decision had serious consequences for Esteban Ocon, as he went from ninth on the track to twelfth in the standings at the end of the grand prix, a decision he did not understand before or after going to the stewards.
“I went to see the footage again, we also went to see the stewards for an explanation, because it’s illogical, it doesn’t make sense,” the Alpine driver told French Canal+ .
“They told us that there was a new rule: that when there was a car inside, if they touched, it was the attacked person who got the penalty. They said that it had changed there, but that they were not happy with the rules either. So really I don’t get it. But hey, it completely ruins the weekend and for that we could have stayed home better.”
More specifically, the stewards justified their sanction in the following way in the document available on the FIA website: “The stewards reviewed the video images and observed that on the approach to turn 1 there was a significant part of car 44 next to the car 31 and, as a consequence of the application of the Driving Rules 2022, car 44 was entitled to space in turn 1”.
Photo by: Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images
Foto de: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Photo by: Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images
Photo by: Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images
Foto de: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
Foto de: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
It should be noted that after the race, footage (not broadcast by the international broadcast) surfaced of another incident between the two drivers showing action on the lap following that initial contact. In it before, at the end of the main straight, there was another collision between Ocon and Hamilton. The seven-time world champion tried to get inside the wall and the Alpine stayed in the middle. It was at that moment that it suffered the damage that was later seen on the left endplate of the front wing. Apparently, that second incident was not investigated by the stewards.
It was a strange end to the race for the Alpine team as Fernando Alonso lost so much time to the drivers in front after the last restart that some wondered if it was a strategy to slow down Hamilton and leave him at the mercy of Ocon. .
However, when questioned, the Frenchman explained that this was “not really” the case and said the Spaniard had increased the pace as soon as the five-second penalty became known.
“No, no, there wasn’t really a strategy. We tried to manage the tires as well as possible so as not to degrade at the end and, once they imposed the five seconds on me, Fernando pushed hard to try to get Hamilton to go a little faster, because he was quite slow. The others were also able to accelerate, so here we are out of the points, we couldn’t create the cushion we needed. It’s a hard result to digest,” concluded Ocon.
