At Alpine they hope for a serious fight with Mercedes in 2022

Alpine might have hoped to compete with the three traditional top teams thanks to the new rule changes, but for now the team is sharing fourth place with McLaren. Esteban Ocon hopes to compete with the Mercedes soon. The Frenchman is confident that his employer can make that happen.

Mercedes believe that their updates have allowed them to catch up with Red Bull Racing and Ferrari. This would mean that they have definitively left the midfield behind, but Alpine's view is slightly different. Ocon thinks it will not be long before Alpine's A522 can fight with the cars of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton.

Britain's Channel 4 asked Ocon if Alpine will eventually be able to duel with the big boys. “Yeah. At the moment, that’s where we are of course. As much as we have improved the car, we haven’t improved it enough yet to be able to fight the Mercs. But it is the aim to fight higher, for sure, and it’s still early days and I have hopes we can at some point fight with them."

More Alpine updates to come

The 25-year-old driver revealed that several more improvements will be made to the 2022 car. The major update introduced at the Silverstone circuit has at least paid off, Ocon said. “So that’s still on the way and we will keep going," he said, sounding combative from the French side.

Yet even Alpine will have to look ahead to 2023 at some point. Because of the budget cap, all teams face a dilemma: When to focus fully on next season and stop spending time developing the current car.