Esteban Ocon has praised the FIA race director Rui Marques for his quick thinking in deciding to delay the start of the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix Sprint Race due to heavy rain.
The weather changed significantly before the start of the race, with the rain falling to an extent that Marques opted to delay the start of the race, which in the end lasted for around 30 minutes.
When the rain stopped, the warm temperatures enabled the track to dry to an extent where it was deemed safe enough for the cars to race, which was won btw McLaren’s Lando Norris.
Speaking to media including Motorsport Week, Ocon was complimentary towards Marques and the stewards for the decision.
“They honestly did super well,” he said. “I was really impressed with the new race director because I couldn’t see anything.
“Straight away they called it, even though the grip level was good. But it was kind of weird with the glare of the sun, the humidity, it stays in the air.
“We all had issues with our tear-offs as well, with some water getting in there. It was very weird that we couldn’t see as much as that.
“And then we restarted, it was quite safe obviously because it was quite dry. But this is what we needed, otherwise it wouldn’t have been safe.”
Ocon hails ‘best quali of the year’ in Miami
Ocon started 12th and finished 12th in the aforementioned Sprint and later on tackled qualifying in far fairer conditions.
The Frenchman would shine bright in the Saturday afternoon session at the Miami International Autodrome, qualifying ninth.
After splitting the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc and the Red Bull of Yuki Tsunoda, Ocon said, “I think, probably [that was] the best quali of the year, so far for us.
“We really turned the car around in terms of set-up to try and improve from the issues that we had in the Sprint race,” he added.
“The Sprint race was really a tricky one. We faced a lot of issues with the car and we overcome most of those.
“I’m still going to say, there are some more that we need to overcome, but honestly we maximise the potential we have, which definitely is a good relief for everyone because we’ve been through quite a lot of tough times lately in Jeddah and the practice here it hasn’t been easy.”
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