F1 team 'FORCED' to give £14m gift to axed driver

Axed Alpine driver Esteban Ocon has revealed that he was given a £14 million car chassis from his old team when he was given the axe.

Alpine opted to replace Ocon with reserve driver Jack Doohan for the final race of the 2024 season, and 2025, as Ocon was left scrambling around for a new team once the news had been broken following a frosty end to his relationship with the French-Anglo outfit.

The Frenchman has found himself at Haas alongside Oliver Bearman, with the team enjoying an outstanding start to the season.

Haas are currently sat up in fifth in the constructors' championship on 20 points, while Ocon's old Alpine team are down in ninth with just six points.

To compound Alpine's misery, Ocon has now revealed on the Beyond the Grid podcast that the Enstone outfit were forced to give him his A521 car as part of a clause in his contract, the chassis with which he claimed success at the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix in.

"It’s not really a gift. It’s a bit more complicated, it was in the contract," Ocon revealed. "So, they were forced to give it! It’s the actual chassis and it’s [the] complete car, it has an engine."

Asked whether he can drive the car, Ocon said: "No, it’s impossible. I’ve thought about it already a thousand times on how to do, and there are a few things missing, like batteries, like some of the ECUs are not there.

"First, it’s dangerous, because a battery without people checking the voltage and stuff and keeping the battery level throughout all the cells is very dangerous. I’ve specifically asked not to have the batteries."

Ocon's leaving present

Recent Motorsport Magazine research has revealed that the price of an F1 car to build is around £14.6 million, representing quite a hefty leaving present for Ocon from his old team.

Ocon's only grand prix victory to date came at the 2021 Hungarian GP, where a chaotic race saw the Frenchman manage to beat title rivals Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton - as well as four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel - to the race victory.

Ocon drove a superbly consistent race amid the chaos behind him to take the win, while damage to Verstappen's car early on in the race prevented him from being able to challenge for the podium positions.

While 28-year-old Ocon has been unable to repeat that success by winning a second F1 race, the Frenchman is proudly now storing his A521 from that day in his garage at home in France.

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