Esteban Ocon recovered from a messy start that involved contact with his team-mate to finish just in the points at today’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
The young Frenchman believed that the start compromised the remainder of his race, as the contact with Sergio Perez in fact damaged his floor.
Although he was still able to make it to the end, he feels as though he could have extracted more performance and perhaps a higher placed finish from the car than he did. It isn’t the first time that the two drivers have come together this season, with an increasingly strained relationship within the team.
“It was a pretty messy start and that compromised my race. Sergio made contact with me in turn one, which caused some damage to my floor, but I was able to continue even though I lost some performance.”
Since starting his Formula 1 career midway through last season, Ocon has been hugely consistent, finishing every race that he has competed him. Although he didn’t finish in the position that he thought he was capable of, he was pleased that he was able to help the team to another double finish.
“In the end, we got another double points finish for the team, which is great considering how difficult the weekend has been leading up to the race. The rest of the race was very clean and we were able to resist a lot of pressure from Stoffel [Vandoorne], so I am happy with the end result.”
“We kept our main rivals behind us today and it means we can go on holiday feeling happy. I’ve scored nearly 50 points in the first part of the season and we’ve got a healthy margin over the teams behind us. Now we can recharge our batteries and come back ready to score even more points in the second half of the year.”
