Esteban Ocon has revealed how his tactical driving in the stages of the Formula 1 Mexico City Grand Prix helped secure Oliver Bearman’s remarkable fourth-place finish.
Lining up in 12th place at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez behind team-mate Bearman, Ocon looked set for a supporting role in the race on the fringes of the points.
Instead, he finished the opening laps ahead of Oscar Piastri’s McLaren and proceeded to hold up the Australian while Bearman shot up to third after taking advantage of incidents.
But Ocon’s assistance to Bearman almost did not happen, as he got stuck behind Yuki Tsunoda’s Red Bull, forced to pull off an aggressive move to complete the pass after light contact.
His battle with the Red Bull driver led to more overtakes after his pitstops, allowing him to secure ninth at the chequered flag, in what proved to be an outstanding day for the team.
“Yeah, very happy overall,” he expressed to media including Motorsport Week.
“I think as a whole, it’s fantastic for the team and really shows that we had a great car pace this weekend.
“I really tried to maximise the pace we had. We got unlucky with quite a lot of things. The start, I got touched. I got stuck behind Yuki, that was defending like I’ve never seen.
“And then, yeah, I defended on Oscar, you know, trying to protect Ollie. I made him lose, you know, quite a few seconds with that fight, between four to six. So that was quite good.
“So overall, yeah, the car was working super well. I’m happy with our performance this weekend and our learning.”
Making the best of a difficult situation
Ocon said Tsunoda might have damaged his car in Mexico, one week on from team-mate Bearman slamming the Red Bull driver over an incident in the Austin race.
“Yeah, he moved on the braking, that was the point,” he said. “And unfortunately, he was the one also giving me a s**t quali. Which, you know, that was not his fault, to be fair.
“So yeah, I always seem to caught him in the wrong place at the wrong time and basically, yeah, that damaged our race.
“We must have lost like, yeah, eight or nine seconds stuck behind him in that first stint and I couldn’t get by.
“And once we cleared him then we could stretch our legs and it was much better but it was too late.
“Yeah, it’s a big day, obviously. We didn’t get the full rewards with the updates that we should have had. But I think the pace for us this weekend was very good.
“We didn’t show everything that there was. So there was some left on the table, but it definitely feels good to have that behind us.
“And I hope it’s not only track-related, you know, we are going to see in Interlagos how it is. It’s a track that I look forward to and I hope that, you know, we can perform in a similar way.
“I mean good memories from last year [when Ocon finished second with Alpine], obviously. I want some rain, yeah, that would be nice.”
READ MORE – Why Oliver Bearman backed Haas’ decision to sacrifice potential F1 Mexico GP podium
Discussion about this post