Esteban Ocon revealed that Haas brought him a “late christmas present” in adapting his Formula 1 steering wheel.
Ocon is well-versed to using a dual-paddle clutch system on his steering wheel and tried his best to adapt to a one-paddle system that he was met with upon joining Haas from Alpine.
The Frenchman felt it wasn’t “safe” to proceed and exclaimed his surprise that Haas was able to turn things around quickly and offer a suitable clutch system for him to test with at the Bahrain International Circuit.
“There’s a lot of things that you need to adapt to and if you can’t adapt to what you have to adapt to, then you need to change things,” Ocon told select media including Motorsport Week.
“So we’ve decided, for example, I got a complete new steering wheel with two clutch paddles.
“I’ve been working that way and I’ve tried the other way but I was struggling quite a bit and the team have managed to get me a late Christmas present, I would say, which has been good.
“These are things that normally take a lot of time and it’s very good that it came out in a short amount of time.”
Ocon explains his clutch preferences
Ocon’s new team-mate Oliver Bearman revealed on Wednesday that he’s perfectly capable to run with a single-paddle clutch system, saying “It’s my own special clutch that I worked hard with the guys over winter to make, and so far my starts have been good, so I’m happy with that.”
Ocon, however, who made his F1 debut back in 2016 with Manor, has long-been used to a dual-paddle system and explained why changing now wasn’t a viable option.
“First of all, going out of the garage, when you have only a right paddle, how do you do [it]?
“You need to hold the wheel when you need to hold the arm and not the end of it, which is very problematic,” he said.
“Or pit stop, when you turn left or right for me it felt unsafe, just boxing and not having the hand at the right place.
“But also the way I wanted my paddle to be designed, it just suits me better to have two paddles the way I have now and it’s working well so far.”
Overall, Ocon has been impressed with how Haas has responded to the changes he’s had to make.
Steering wheels and clutch paddles are things that a driver must be comfortable with and when changing teams can be the most important thing to fix promptly.
“But those are the things visible, there’s a lot of things underneath in my position that we managed to really fix quickly, which has been good,” Ocon added.
“And a lot of technical things on the wheel as well that we’re able to place in the same point that I’ve been using for almost 10 years now, really, even back at Force India.”
READ MORE – How Haas is helping Esteban Ocon to adapt prior to 2025 F1 season
