Esteban Ocon on controversial 2024 Monaco crash: "Didn't cost the team anything"

Esteban Ocon, who left Alpine at the end of the 2024 season to join Haas, has addressed the controversial crash with his teammate at the time, Pierre Gasly, in Monaco.

The two French drivers crashed on the opening lap of the 2024 Monaco Grand Prix when Ocon went for an aggressive overtake of Gasly which ended with the pair crashing and the former going airborne. Both cars were left damaged. Gasly went on to secure his first point of the season with a tenth-place finish, but Ocon was forced to retire from the race.

Gasly laid the blame wholly on Ocon after the race, stating: 

“Right now, I must say I’m very pleased and very relieved for the whole team. We knew Monaco was a place where there would be an opportunity, even if we struggled with the car since the start of the year.

“We managed to seize the opportunity yesterday with that first Q3 and it was important to capitalise on that, and that’s what we did. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as peaceful as we had planned. I don’t want to go into too much details, but these things should not happen.

“It was a clear instruction from the team on what to do, what we were supposed to do, and this wasn’t respected [by Ocon]. I’m just glad we managed to get out of it with only some front wing damage and a couple of things, and luckily with the red flag we managed to repair it.”

Ocon also took responsibility for the crash, posting to social media: 

Esteban Ocon, Alpine A524

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

“Today’s incident was my fault, the gap was too small in the end and I apologise to the team on this one,” he said. “Hoping for a deserved points-finish for the team today.”

Now, when speaking to Motorsport.com ahead of the 2025 season, Ocon defended the crash, claiming that it was blown out of proportion:

"Even though Monaco happened, it didn't cost the team anything. I raised my hand. I would have liked things to have gone differently, for sure. But, yeah, we've done our best every single time. And I think, yeah, we got the maximum out of the car, you know, throughout these two seasons."

Click here to read the full interview with Esteban Ocon.

He added:

"As soon as there's a headline, people like to jump on it," he says. "But yeah, what can I say? I think, from my perspective, we did what we needed to do [with each team] and took the opportunities when they came. And we worked well together – with Pierre, with Fernando, with Daniel. We also worked well with Checo. We ticked the boxes, in the end. So that's the most important thing. And I'm not a guy who's here to crash into my team-mate. That's bullshit."

Ocon has signed with the Haas F1 team for the 2025 season where he will drive alongside rookie Oliver Bearman.