Explained: Red Bull's Amusing Response To Ocon's Alpine Exit That Many People Didn't Get

F1
Tuesday, 04 June 2024 at 11:51
ocon esteban alpine13
Red Bull Racing, social media administrators, issued a funny response to Esteban Ocon's exit from Alpine's announcement of parting ways at the end of the 2024 season.
On Monday, June 3rd (one week after the 2024 Monaco Grand Prix weekend), the Alpine F1 team and Esteban Ocon announced they would part ways at the end of the 2024 season.
It isn't very common for F1 teams to respond to such serious statements from rival teams, but Red Bull's social media admins couldn't help but jibe at Alpine with their status, which read:

"We understand that without our agreement, Alpine F1 have released a statement regarding Esteban Ocon, causing wild speculation over our 'Stay tuned' announcement 😬'" 

Red Bull: "We understand that without our agreement, Alpine F1 have released a statement regarding Esteban Ocon, causing wild speculation over our 'Stay tuned' announcement 😬' Team 😭😭

Image
7.9K
Reply

What was Red Bull referring to?

Red Bull posted the "Stay tuned" announcement on its Instagram channel one day before Alpine posted an announcement about Ocon's future departure.
This led some fans to speculate that Ocon's Alpine exit announcement would be followed by a Red Bull contract signing announcement (meaning Ocon would be joining Red Bull in 2025)β€”which Red Bull had teased a day prior.
This, however, wasn't the case, and Red Bull's social media administrators decided to clarify in a more funny way. The wording of the Red Bull's tweet was the same as that of Oscar Piastri's on August 2nd, 2022, amid his controversy with Alpine.
The Australian driver clarified on his social media at the time that he hadn't signed a contract with the French F1 team and that they posted an announcement about his signing without his agreement.

I understand that, without my agreement, Alpine F1 have put out a press release late this afternoon that I am driving for them next year. This is wrong and I have not signed a contract with Alpine for 2023. I will not be driving for Alpine next year.

385.9K
Reply
Long story short, this tweet later became kind of a meme in the F1 community. Red Bull's Threads page administrators thought it would be funny to repeat Piastri's wording in their tweet and poke a bit of fun at Alpine. Did you get the joke when you've seen Red Bull's post for the first time?