As the new Formula 1 season begins at the Australian Grand Prix, Esteban Ocon enters his 10th year in the championship, reflecting on what he has achieved and what he still believes is missing.
The Frenchman marked the milestone on social media earlier this year.
But while he has secured podiums and a race win during his career, Ocon told media including Motorsport Week, that he still expects more from himself.
“Yes, I think it’s fair to say that I’m happy with what I’ve achieved in terms of podiums and wins, I’m proud of those, but I haven’t achieved enough in F1.
“I’ve won in every category that I’ve driven in the past, apart from DTM maybe, with my half a year, but from karting to single-seater, I’ve won everywhere.
“Yes, I’ve won one race in F1, but it’s not enough. Out of 180 races, to my standard, it’s disappointing so far, so I hope that this will change in the near future, but I will work hard for that to happen.”
Ocon’s sole Grand Prix victory came at the Hungarian Grand Prix 2021, but the 29-year-old believes there is still much more to achieve.
What Esteban Ocon expects from the first race weekend
Attention now turns to the opening round of the 2026 season at the Australian GP.
Pre-season running appeared encouraging for Haas, with strong reliability allowing the squad to complete its planned programme. However, Ocon remains cautious about drawing conclusions until cars run at full pace.
“I mean, I don’t know at the moment, it’s a bit early to say, but for sure the test has been very good for us.
“I think we’ve never had any single issues, reliability, mechanical failures, nothing of that was ever a problem.
“So we are able to gather a lot of data all together, which has helped us to arrive here more ready than I guess some of us that had difficulties.
“Now time will tell where exactly we are.”
Testing took place in Bahrain, but Ocon expects a very different challenge in Melbourne, particularly when it comes to energy management.
“Of course there will be a lot of new things for many teams, depending on what they are bringing, I think there will be some performance gains.
“Of course we are going to bring some stuff as well later on in the year, but I look forward to see when everybody goes flat out where we are and what is the picture also in practise.
“Because there is a lot of unknown, it’s probably the most difficult track in terms of energy management as well, this one, so it’s very different to how it was in Bahrain, a bit more similar to how it was in Barcelona, but Barcelona was too early days for everyone, so it’s going to be interesting.”
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