During his post-season tests in Abu Dhabi, in a 2014 Lotus-Renault, Esteban Ocon, who was up against regular driver Pastor Maldonado, really impressed his team.<\/p>\n
By finishing only three-tenths of a second behind the Venezuelan, the young French driver earned the admiration of Alan Permane, Lotus’s technical director: \u00ab Working with him is an absolute pleasure. He is undoubtedly very fast, even though I don’t think we needed to put him in the car to know that. There is no doubt. \u00bb<\/p>\n
On the other hand, his technical feedback seems precise and valuable for the Enstone team: \u00ab His feedback is excellent. He had no preconceived notions about the car, so he didn’t tell us if the tires were overheating or if the diffuser was stalling; he simply described what was happening, which was a bit of oversteer. \u00bb<\/p>\n
His strong abilities could therefore quickly lead him to take on a more significant role within the team in the relatively near future, according to the engineer: \u00ab This seems very positive for the future. Finishing the test session only three-tenths behind Pastor was excellent. It was 100% representative of his capabilities. They had the same fuel load and were on the same program. He had never driven a 2014 single-seater or a hybrid power unit before, so there is still a lot to come. \u00bb<\/p>\n
\u00ab One thing he said was that there were a lot of setting adjustments to make during a lap, which, of course, race drivers are now used to doing. They know that every lap they’re going to have to change a switch, and at the beginning of the season it was a real struggle, but now it’s like second nature. So he has all that to learn in addition to the circuits. I’m sure he’s a star of tomorrow. \u00bb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Esteban Ocon, a member of the Lotus team’s young driver academy, has truly impressed his team, to the point that Alan Permane, the technical director, sees him as a future star of Formula 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":39825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,1749],"tags":[330],"class_list":["post-13942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-f1","category-news","tag-ocon"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n