Fernando Alonso blanks ex-teammate in hilarious way after fractious relationship
Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso with a big smile in an interview. Spain June 2023
Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon were not the best of friends while Alpine teammates, to a degree where the two-time World Champion did not say his name out loud when he was an answer on a Formula 1 quiz.
Alonso and Ocon’s relationship became increasingly fractious over their time together at Alpine, with several on-track battles eventually leading to contact in Sao Paulo last season, and subsequently attracting the ire of recently-departed team boss Otmar Szafnauer.
While Alonso has now departed to Aston Martin, he did not take the opportunity to score a point in a quiz in which Ocon was the answer on offer to him.
Fernando Alonso: ‘Pass!’
In the newest instalment of the popular ‘Grill the Grid’ series released on Formula 1’s YouTube channel, the challenge for the drivers was to name a race-winning driver for each letter of the alphabet from A to Z from the annuls of Formula 1 history.
When the letter came around to ‘O’, Ocon, winner of the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix, was the only answer available for that letter.
The camera cut to Alonso, who more than played his part in that victory with his stout defence against a charging Lewis Hamilton at the Hungaroring, and he was given the clue of: “[He] might have been a team-mate of yours” and “French”, but when the Spaniard clocked on to the answer, he gave a knowing smile and chuckle and still responded: “Pass!”
PlanetF1.com recommends
Explained: The 2026 engine regulations set to seriously shake up Formula 1
The F1 records held by Max Verstappen…and the ones he could still break in 2023
After departing Alpine, Alonso has not been shy in sending little jabs in the direction of his former team after enjoying fresh success with Aston Martin this year.
He gave an apparent dig at his former colleague in suggesting Lance Stroll “thinks as a teammate” after the Canadian agreed not to attack him in Azerbaijan, claiming he would have had “maybe the opposite” with Ocon last season.
Read next: Cringeworthy Toto Wolff idea would have made Lewis Hamilton ‘puke’
