Ocon: New Alpine F1 investor Ryan Reynolds is "inspiring"

Ocon has already made contact with the Hollywood star and is planning to visit him on the set of the next Deadpool 3 film in London.

Reynolds and his colleagues Rob McElhenney and Michael B. Jordan are part of a consortium of three US-based entities that have combined to acquire a 24% stake of the Alpine team.

"I think it's fantastic," said Ocon when asked by Autosport about the team’s new Hollywood connections. “I was extremely lucky to be able to chat on Tuesday with Ryan. So we exchanged a couple of WhatsApp [messages] together.

“I was in the simulator. And I usually take my phone just to take notes from all the runs and to have that on the record, but that time I allowed myself to send a little picture to Ryan saying, ‘I'm live from the simulator. This is the view.’ And he liked that.

"I said welcome to the team to him and straight away he said, ‘Hi Esteban I'm very much forward to learn from you and to meet you.’

"He sent me his phone number, his email address and we then texted on WhatsApp, so really good."

Expanding on their initial contact, the Frenchman said: "He told me I was invited on the set in London for the Deadpool movie. So I'm definitely going to be going!

"He also said that he was very much looking forward to learn from our world, see how things work, and just to have a racing chat all together. I'm a massive comics and Marvel fan in general, and massive Deadpool fan, obviously.

"He's just someone that is very inspiring in what he does. Outside his actor world I think he's an extremely talented businessman as well.

"I'm looking forward very much to being able to meet him and have a chat with him properly."

Esteban Ocon, Alpine F1 Team

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Ocon acknowledged the success that Reynolds and his associates have had with Welsh football club Wrexham.

"I think all what Ryan has done recently with his company has been extremely successful," he said. "There hasn't been any failure that I know. So yeah, I think he's a very good asset, him and his team behind our team."

Other members of the investment consortium include sports marketing experts with deep knowledge of the NFL, NBA and European football, and Ocon acknowledged that they will also be a boost for Alpine.

"As a whole all the investors, in general, they're going to bring their expertise into the team, and it really shows the dedication of the team to push forward on every aspect,” he said.

“Obviously that's not going to help on the performance of the car itself, but on every other aspect that we can improve, we are going to have these investors expertise where they excel, basically."

Ocon added that the extra funding will help the team to make progress by improving the factory facilities.

"I'm not going to go into details, but we know where that needs to go," he explained. "It's going to help infrastructure, and things that I will be using quite a lot as well.

"We know where want to take the team, we want to take the team up there, to be fighting for podiums, for wins, as soon as possible. That that is my aim, as quickly as possible.

"I'm not here to waste time. When we [finished] third in Monaco, we didn't let Ferrari past because we thought they were ahead of us. We want to fight for these positions as quickly as possible."