Esteban Ocon was satisfied to have picked up four points for eighth place, but was left concerned about the team’s strategy choices, having come dangerously close to losing the place to Felipe Massa late in the race.
Ocon had been running solidly in eighth for most of the race, but was caught off-guard by Felipe Massa’s long opening stint on the soft tyre, the Williams driver going the furthest of all into the race before changing tyres. The Frenchman was concerned the lack of foresight from his team would need addressed.
“I don’t think we went the right way with the strategy because I lost a lot of time to Massa after my stop,” he said. “We just need to review things and see if we could have done anything differently.”
Ocon had made a great start at the first turn, leapfrogging both his team-mate Sergio Perez and the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton, but almost immediately lost the positions again at Turn 3.
“I’m pleased with the points we’ve scored today and it was a strong race for the team. I made a good start and gained a couple of positions, but I was behind Lewis [Hamilton] going into turn three and got squeezed, which meant I had to ease off and lost momentum. Then it was just a case of keeping my head down and being consistent with my laptimes.”
Overall he acknowledged that despite his strategy concerns, the team had done a reasonable job overall, despite being unable to match the pace of Red Bull and Romain Grosjean‘s Haas ahead.
“It’s not been the easiest of weekends for us, but we’ve worked hard and it’s satisfying to come away with good points even when things are not going perfectly. I think we showed our strength as a team.”
