Esteban Ocon questioned Alpine’s call to pit him late in the United States Grand Prix and take the fastest lap - before realising it was to stop Williams claiming an additional point in what could be a tight battle in the Formula 1 constructors’ championship.
Williams driver Franco Colapinto was running 10th on Sunday, but was on to double his points haul for the race after setting the fastest lap.
Yet Alpine was aware of this and called in Ocon, who was running towards the back of the field, to put on soft tyres and beat Colapinto’s effort with three laps remaining.
The two squads are squabbling over eighth and ninth place in the standings and Williams is now four points ahead with five rounds left of the 2024 season.
“The only thing at the end was to recover the fastest lap – to get it away from Williams, from Franco, and we managed to do that successfully, but the car was difficult to drive,” said Ocon, who finished 18th after a forgettable race.
“Normally, P10 never has the fastest lap, that is why I questioned completely [the decision to stop], because I didn't see the point. But I get it now.
“It's a battle for everything in the end and a point is a top 10 finish, which is very important. I'm sorry to him because he deserved it, to be fair, but that is how it is.”
Alpine team principal Oliver Oakes praised the call to bring Ocon into the pits as the French squad aims to overtake Williams before the end of the season.
“Credit to the guys on the pitwall,” he said. “I think they were beating themselves up a bit, but it is never easy. Everyone has got hindsight afterwards but that was a good call at the time.
“I guess it's a bit cheeky to take a point off Williams for the fastest lap, because I think Colapinto would have had it, so that was the main reason.
“Fair play to Williams, they are doing a good job. I think Baku was a big weekend for them [Williams scored 10 points] and capitalising on that has made our lives a little bit difficult to get that back, but there are still a few races to go and we are aiming for that.”
Colapinto impressed yet again and secured another points finish for Williams, who brought in the Argentinian to replace Logan Sargeant from September’s Italian GP onwards.
He will not race for the team next year as Carlos Sainz will join from Ferrari to partner Alex Albon, but his form means he remains in the conversation for a drive – as Sauber and RB are yet to finalise their line-ups.
“We had the fastest lap,” Colapinto told Motorsport.com. “He took it with new tyres but it had not been close before.
“I think I did it many laps earlier, with an older tyre, and I think we just had a much better pace than them. They had to put a new set of wheels, low fuel to try to take it from us.
"So they weren't close to us in terms of pace. But look, it's part of racing. I was happy for the fastest lap and I wanted to keep it but it's fine. We had it for a while.
“It's a point that we lost, but we are going to recover it soon. We had a good car, and we are capable of scoring points, so we're going to come back stronger, I'm sure of that."
Alpine’s call came just days after it was confirmed that the point for fastest lap would be scrapped from 2025 onwards.
There was controversy at the Singapore GP last month as Daniel Ricciardo, racing for RB for the final time, came in towards the end of the race for softs and took the fastest lap point away from Lando Norris.
The McLaren driver is fighting for the title against Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, with the team denying after the race that it had called on the sister squad to pit Ricciardo to snatch the extra point from Norris.
