A weekend to forget for Esteban Ocon, accumulating 35 seconds of penalties
Starting 12th on the grid, Esteban Ocon didn't manage to make a comeback into the points. Worse, he received numerous penalties that killed any hope of finishing in the top 10.
Esteban Ocon did not have as good of a weekend as in Monaco or Canada. On the Red Bull Ring, the Alpine lacked pace and he couldn’t score points in the Grand Prix. However, he still brought back two points from the Saturday sprint race, better than nothing but not what he had hoped for.
At the microphone of Canal+ after the race, he first commented on the difficulty of the race. “« Not a good race clearly. The penalty, for sure, didn’t help, we deserve it, we deserve five seconds. It didn’t help us for the rest of the race, we already seem to be outside the points but the speed wasn’t very good. We weren’t going as fast as in previous races,” stated the Frenchman.
The track limits didn’t help Esteban Ocon either. A few hours after the Grand Prix, all the unadministered penalties were given, once again changing the rankings. Esteban Ocon received a 30-second penalty for exceeding the track limits. Already outside the points, the Alpine driver finishes far behind.
Work to be done in the face of McLaren’s return
Initially classified in 5th place, Lando Norris inherited the 4th position after Carlos Sainz’s penalty. A big points haul for the British driver and McLaren, who could quickly close in on Alpine. The Woking-based team now trails the French brand by only 18 points. Esteban Ocon underlines the need to work but doesn’t hesitate to congratulate McLaren.
« Their new releases are doing very well, that’s clear. But it’s a circuit that suits them rather well. We’ll see when we go back to a more normal circuit. We also have things coming up in the next races. Anyway, they took a big step forward this weekend,” he declared on Canal+.
Attention for Alpine not to be caught up by McLaren. However, the Woking team will have to be competitive on the other circuits. Alpine will have to work to improve its performance, starting this weekend at Silverstone.
Ocon is aware of the work to be done after this Grand Prix in order to ensure staying competitive. The Frenchman already seems to know what needs to be corrected for the next races. « We have some work to do to understand why the car wasn’t so good this weekend and come back stronger in England. We have a few ideas why it wasn’t great this weekend », he said.
