Esteban Ocon, author of a great comeback at Suzuka despite the chaos at the start
After having to go through the pits to fix some damage following an accident at the start of the race, Esteban Ocon maintained the pace to finish the Japanese Grand Prix five places higher.
It was a beautiful Sunday for Esteban Ocon. Starting from 14th position, he was able to fight his way up to 9th place – not without being helped by an instruction from his team, however. With 7 laps to go, the one wearing the number 31 gave up his position to Pierre Gasly, who had fresher tires, so that he could try to overtake Fernando Alonso and thus secure 8th place. However, he did not succeed, so Alpine ordered him to give back his position to his teammate. This did not fail to to make the person from Rouen extremely angry.”
Let’s note, however, that Esteban Ocon survived a chaotic start to the race, finding himself caught up in a chain reaction involving Guanyu Zhou, Valtteri Bottas, and Alexander Albon – the latter two drivers being forced to retire. The Frenchman had to go through the pits to repair some components on his car and therefore lost valuable time. He was naturally pleased to have been able to make up for this delay later on.
« First of all, it’s great to have both of our cars back in the points. I believe the team handled a difficult strategy today and, overall, we performed well on track. We had a tough start with the race incident on the first lap, which could have easily ended our race, but we managed to recover well, handle the tires, make good pit stops, and finish the day with points, he says. »
Faced with the controversy surrounding Pierre Gasly’s outburst after the team’s instruction 7 laps from the end, Esteban Ocon tries to brush it off and focuses on the result obtained in Suzuka: a double points finish.
« It was a great team spirit to try to earn even more points and, in the end, we probably got the best out of what we had today. We have a lot of things to learn and discuss, and we hope to come back stronger in Qatar in two weeks », he concluded.
