Brundle believes ‘punchy’ Ocon played a role in Alonso exit

Martin Brundle believes that, while Fernando Alonso moving to Aston Martin is in part down to his ‘multi-year’ contract, his battles with Esteban Ocon will not have helped matters.

Alonso was unhappy on team radio at the start of the weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix, after Ocon moved across and blocked his team-mate at the start and hindered his progress.

“Never in my life I saw a defence like Esteban. Never,” was the two-time World Champion’s assessment of the move as his Alpine colleague moved right in front of him, which he described after the race as being “quite aggressive” on Ocon’s part.

The in-team fight at Alpine continued in the race as well, with their duel having an eventual negative effect as they ran wide at Turn 2, allowing McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo to swoop past the pair of them in one go.

This is not the first time this season there has been a spicy battle between the two either, with a heated duel in Saudi Arabia also almost seeing sparks fly as they fought tooth-and-nail for several laps.

Brundle said that, while several factors will have been in play with Alonso’s shock decision to join Aston Martin, Ocon’s stout defending and forceful attacking will have had a negative impact at the team, not least in maximising their potential results in losing time through their squabbles.

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Does anyone else really, really want Netflix to be in the Alpine debrief tonight?#HungarianGP #F1

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