Alpine not ruling out future team orders after Alonso-Ocon battle

Alpine says drivers Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon are free to continue battling on track, but won’t rule out applying team orders if points are at stake.

Sunday’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix saw the pair endure a hard-fought scrap for position during the early laps, which, at times, risked ending in a collision.

Both Alpine’s had been on the back of George Russell but their squabble allowed the Mercedes driver to pull away and left it falling into the clutches of Valtteri Bottas and Kevin Magnussen.

The team eventually took action and told Ocon to hold position, but the Frenchman, who finished P6, said he enjoyed fighting with team-mate Alonso.

“Of course when you fight, the same as in go-karts, you lose time, it’s normal,” Ocon said, as quoted by RaceFans. “But [in] one-stop race, track position is quite important.

“We are allowed to race by the team. It’s always a privilege to race with Fernando so it makes me smile.”

Alonso said the team had made clear before lights out that both drivers were allowed to race but not make contact, with the double world champion eventually prevailing before a technical issue forced him to retire.

“We know before we start that we can race but never touch each other, so we never do,” Alonso said.

“I felt that my car was in the window working a little bit better today so I had the opportunity to overtake and pull away a little bit. The main threat, as I said, it was Bottas. Bottas was fast today and it was not easy to keep him behind.”

Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer had no concerns with how his drivers behaved when going wheel-to-wheel.

“They did exactly what we talked about before the race, and it was good for everybody,” said Szafnauer.

“As it turned out, had Fernando not stopped