Alpine is "next in line" to challenge the top teams in Formula 1 for silverware, Esteban Ocon has asserted.
The Frenchman's team enjoyed a successful 2022 season overall. They prevailed in their battle with rivals McLaren for fourth place in the constructors' championship, even despite some reliability issues and growing tensions between Ocon and the veteran Fernando Alonso.
The Spaniard has now left for Aston Martin and will be replace at Alpine next year by Pierre Gasly. And the new man has promised that the childhood feud between the two French racers has been put to bed ahead of working together in 2023.
Alpine will hope so, as they have long been deprived of the success they crave. Ocon's surprise win in Budapest last year was their first and only under their current branding, while Kimi Raikkonen's Australian GP success was the previous time the Enstone team – then using the Lotus name – tasted victory.
And their championship successes came in 2005 and 2006 with Alonso during his first Renault stint. Lando Norris was the 'best of the rest' out of the drivers again in 2022, but Ocon thinks he and his team can be the ones to break the monopoly the 'big three' have over the sport.
He told RacingNews365 : "Hopefully we can get closer to the front, it is the aim and next year's car in the simulator is very promising at the moment. Obviously we are keeping people on the ground, but it feels like a step in the right direction, and I look forward to seeing what we will be able to do.
"If you keep the regulations the same, at some point, every team progresses and hopefully you get closer to the top three. We are focused at the moment – and we are the next ones in line to get there."
Reflecting in an ultimately successful 2022 season, Ocon heaped praise on his team for the improvement shown after a poor start. He added: "Very early on, we didn't start where we wanted to be – we were behind the Haas and Alfa Romeo cars, and our car was not working at its best.
"I quickly found out where the issues were, and we told the team about it, and they managed to translate that into upgrades which really helped. With that understanding and at the same time of putting upgrades in, I really feel like I've stepped up.
"I felt very much at one [with the car] in a lot of races, and getting the maximum out of it on some weekends and scoring some big points like fourth or fifth. Weekends like Austria, like Suzuka and Budapest all felt very strong."
