Ayao Komatsu knew nothing about Alpine’s reported ultimatum to Esteban Ocon as he already had Oliver Oakes’ “word” that Ocon could test for his 2025 team in Abu Dhabi.

Ocon’s Alpine career was cut short when the team announced that the driver would not contest the season finale in Abu Dhabi, his seat instead going to 2025 Alpine race driver Jack Doohan.

Haas had Alpine team boss Oliver Oakes’ ‘word’, and then…

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

Crashing out of the Qatar Grand Prix when he was hit by Nico Hulkenberg at the start, Ocon was still making his way back to the paddock when a rumour claiming he’d run his last race with Alpine began to spread.

His team boss Oakes admitted discussions were taking place but that no definite decision had been made. That came on Monday morning, Ocon out and Doohan in for Abu Dhabi.

According to reports, Alpine advisor Briatore instigated the early swap as he handed Ocon an ultimatum – if he wanted to drive for his 2025 F1 team Haas in the post-season Abu Dhabi test, he would have to step down immediately.

Komatsu was surprised by Alpine’s decision given Oakes had already given his Haas counterpart his “word” that Ocon would be allowed to test.

“I spoke with Ollie in one of the F1 Commission meetings, which one was it, I can’t remember when. But way before I confirmed it,” Komatsu told the media, including PlanetF1.com, in Abu Dhabi. “He said yeah, it’s no problem.”

Asked when he released he was part of the chess pieces being moved around, he replied: “That’s up to them. It’s got nothing to do with me.

“I spoke with Ollie and Ollie said, ‘yeah, it’s okay, no problem, you can have Ocon driving the car’. Then what should we do with the suit? Should we just do it in a white suit? Yeah, that’s the simplest, isn’t it? Then that was it.

“I’m pretty simple in that sense, that whatever goes on internally at Alpine has got nothing to do with me, right? So for me, Ollie gave me his word, so that was good enough.”

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“Whatever happens in Alpine, it’s got nothing to do with me internally,” he added.

“As far as I’m concerned, last time I spoke to Ollie about this, Ollie was happy that Esteban could drive for us in the post-season test, and he hasn’t said anything different ever since.

“So if something changed, then I expect him to come to talk to me about it. But he hasn’t. So he gave me his word. That was good enough for me.”

Komatsu isn’t judging Alpine, after all, he doesn’t know the full story.

“You just never know the full story, right?” he said. “So, yeah, I don’t really know what’s going on there, so I don’t want to sit here and judge what they do or anything like that.

“But, yeah, I’m just looking forward to helping him to be part of our team.”

But while Ocon and Alpine have parted ways, the Frenchman is not yet a Haas driver, Komatsu making it clear that’s still Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen.

“This weekend is still the 2024 season, and we’re trying to finish this season with Kevin and Nico who have their last race with us as well. So we really focused on that.

“So kind of like Esteban’s, let’s say, new journey starts on Monday after the race.”

He also revealed he has spoken with Ocon since Monday’s shock announcement and that the driver is “fine”.

Ocon will partner Oliver Bearman next season with Haas fielding an all-new line-up. Hulkenberg is off to Sauber and Kevin Magnussen will race for BMW in their LMDh programme.

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