Esteban Ocon believes his season was full of too many inconsistencies, which meant he was unable to finish inside the top ten in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship standings in 2023.
The BWT Alpine F1 Team driver finished on the podium in the Monaco Grand Prix and had some other good results, but a number of retirements and incidents meant he ended the season outside of the top ten, the Frenchman ending down in twelfth with fifty-eight points.
Ocon was beaten in the standings by his new team-mate Pierre Gasly, while a late season surge from Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula 1 Team’s Lance Stroll meant both Alpine drivers finished outside of the top ten.
“I think there’s been some very good things, some very good opportunities that we took,” Ocon is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com. “But the consistency overall hasn’t been there.
“And we had too many DNFs. That has cost us, I think it’s nine DNFs in total, probably the most of any drivers.
“If you remove the issue we had with the gearbox in Singapore, and the contact with Oscar [Piastri] in Austin, we could have been in the top 10 in the championship. So that’s why it’s a little bit of a wasted opportunity.”
Looking ahead to the 2024 season, Ocon says he will be looking to focus more of his time on his racing in order to improve on what he did this year, much like he did in 2022.
“From January 2 until the first test I will be back fully into training camp,” Ocon added. “I’m going to be more doing the way I was doing it in 2022, which is no life, flat out, only racing. We’ve been doing a lot of different things and activations outside the track this year.
“That’s going to change next year. It’s back to war mode and fully focused on the racing side. Before that there’s going be the Christmas party of the team, there’s going be some simulator work.
“I’m going be able to have a couple of days seeing my family that I haven’t seen for a while. We’re going to have some good times with friends, with Mick [Schumacher], with all my friends in December as well, and then it’s fully focused on next year.”
