Esteban Ocon has revealed that he was laid low by a viral infection to his lungs over the winter which left him temporarily unable to train.

"I've been very sick after Abu Dhabi," he told reporters at last night's launch. "I got some kind of virus in the lungs, so for a month and a half I was not really able to go back on the fitness level that I was supposed to have.

"But we've done a great job together with my team, with my coaches, and to go back to fitness level that I have in the previous year," he continued. "I feel great now but in such a short period of time, you know, those viruses are strong and everyone needs to take care.

"I'm back 100% now," he insisted, "but it was worrying for a moment. I'm happy with how it ended but obviously a bit of a difficult moment at the start of pre-season.

"I was able to do some things, but I have to say my cardio went to the highest level at walking pace, for example, like it was that bad. So we were quite worried, but we did everything in a way for me to recover the quickest possible and to switch that into full training mode when I was feeling better. Then I climbed massively up, but for a long time, it did plateau.

"That was when we started to worry, but it's great to have a very strong team around me to be able to guide me and keep my head up during those moments.

"We have the data on different physical tests and my weight and all that. I'm higher on most, on most data that I had in 2022, so, that's very good, very reassuring.

"It was just a scary moment for quite a while, which was not going away. The human body is a very strange machine, and that's why we can't fix it as quickly as we would fix a car, which is quite a pain sometimes, but that's how it is."

Meanwhile, asked about another potential threat to his health, the arrival of long-time nemesis Pierre Gasly, he was keen to play down the suggestion that bad feeling between the pair could compromise the team, even though this was the case at Racing Point with Sergio Perez and at Alpine with Fernando Alonso.

"Obviously you guys like the headlines and all these kinds of stories," he said, "but we are both very professional and we are going to work the way we need to be performing.

"I don't think we will ever be best friends," he admitted, "but that doesn't matter really, as long as the atmosphere is great inside the team, and that's how it is at the moment and that's how it will remain during the year.

"The important thing is that we keep those open conversations that we are having at the moment and we will have them because we are not at the point where we can win every race. We need to develop this car, we need to get the maximum conversation flow going to find ideas going forward, so I'm not worried.

"It's going to be a great collaboration together, it has already started, and I look forward to keeping it."

"It's been really good" added Gasly. "I've spent more time with him in the past two months than the last ten.

"We're grown up people now, mature people, aware of the responsibility of being an Alpine driver and having a big group behind us. We just know we've got to work closely together if we want to be competitive and push the team forward. We have to work together and that's why I have no doubt everything will be fine."

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