Austin performance struggles came as a surprise to Alpine

Both Alpine drivers were forced to retire from the race in Austin in what was its first non-score since the season-opener in Bahrain.

Ocon retired on Lap 40 due to a suspected issue with the rear suspension of his Alpine, while teammate Fernando Alonso called it a day prematurely due to rear wing damage.

Even without the issues, Alpine struggled for pace relative to its usual midfield rivals. 

“A difficult weekend for all of us,” Ocon said. “We struggled with pace this weekend, we were not as fast as we would have liked. It was a compromised race after the touch with Antonio [Giovinazzi] at the start with the front wing damage. So when we boxed we were far back and we were not quick enough to recover. 

“In the end we retired the car, we think there is a problem with the back of the car - I don’t know the exact cause yet, but we had to retire in the end. So yeah, a weekend to forget but we are going to push hard onto the next one to try to get back into the points.”

Ocon pointed towards Austin’s unique, bumpy track surface as potentially one of the reasons why it struggled.

“Yeah we didn’t expect to struggle as much as that,” Ocon added. “We had to fight the car quite hard in practice but we did good improvements all the way through every session. Qualifying was not as good as what we would have hoped but we improved it a lot from FP1. 

“In the race it was a big struggle again. We need to analyse and come back stronger from it, but it’s a track on its own I would say. The track is very rough in comparison to other places, it’s quite bumpy, so there’s many aspects that we will look into.”

Alonso is hopeful that Alpine can “find some answers” ahead of the Mexican Grand Prix next time out.

“Hopefully we can still find some answers,” Alonso said. “As I said before, I think in the race the car was much better. I felt more competitive and definitely I was faster than Alfa Romeo, Aston Martin, even Tsunoda. 

“In free practice we were not as quick as we were today, so it was a nice step forward in the race, what I felt. But still not as good as Sochi or Turkey. So we need to keep analysing. 

“Probably the bumps and suspension is very specific what you run here in Austin because of the characteristics, so it’s something we didn’t get it right. We will try to analyse and be on our top form in Mexico.”