Esteban Ocon secured his fourth consecutive points finish and his best result to date in his Formula 1 career as he secured seventh place in the Russian Grand Prix, just 8.216 seconds behind team-mate Sergio Perez.
The Frenchman lost a few places off the line at the Sochi Autodrom but made them back up quickly, and shadowed his Sahara Force India F1 Team team-mate for much of the afternoon, feeling it was a strong event for the team.
“It feels great to finish in seventh after such a strong performance from the whole team,” said Ocon. “I am very happy with what we achieved this weekend: we improved in every session and never went backwards.
“From the mechanics to the engineers, everyone did a great job and we can be proud. I feel there is nothing more we could have extracted from the car: the only negative from the race was a poor start, but I managed to get those positions back before the first lap was over, so it was all good in the end.”
Ocon believes the start of his Force India career has given him a lot of confidence, and with upgrades planned for the Spanish Grand Prix, he believes the team can be confident that good results can continue.
“Finishing in the points in all of the first four races is a great way to start the season and the best I could have hoped for,” said Ocon.
“We are in fourth position going into Barcelona, where we expect some upgrades to be on our car, so we can be confident about the future.”
