Esteban Ocon doesn’t think he warranted a penalty for his move against Lance Stroll in F1 Italian GP, as he was surprised by lack of co-relation on his side.
After low-key qualifying, Haas’ Ocon tried a long run strategy in F1 Italian GP at Monza to come through in points. But his chance was derailed after a tussle with Stroll. In the lead-up to Turn 4, the two made slight contact when the Canadian was sent on grass and was forced to back-off.
The stewards deemed Ocon as guilty party and handed him a 5s time penalty for forcing another driver off track. The Frenchman didn’t think he warranted a penalty considering that the track is narrow, especially in the Turn 4 sequence. “I didn’t re-watched it, but I don’t think so,” he said to media.
“It is a place where the track narrows out. So, even if you stay on your line, the track narrows, so the driver on the outside will always have a wheel on the grass. It is more the case of the track narrowing, more than me not leaving the space to my friend Lance.”
His race was undone by the penalty and also bad qualifying. In a grand prix where degradation was low, the strategy didn’t play a huge role since they were fighting for only couple of places in the points. Ocon noted his struggles with understeer and was surprised that sim numbers didn’t translate.
“No, no, but it [strategy] was worth trying in the end,” said Ocon. “The tyres were getting quicker and quicker. It just made sense to keep going. I think, yeah, not a great weekend on our side, especially after qualifying. We found out few things that were not correct with the car. Obviously, we tried to rectify for the race, but it was a bit late and it put us in a bad position for the race.
“In the race, the pace is the pace you have but everybody follows each other, you can’t really pass. So, that really didn’t help us but overall, lot of things to review and learn it from this weekend and hopefully we can put it in next weekend. We will try to fix it as a team. Obviously the issue was quite a lot of understeer in qualifying, we found out we were lacking front downforce on the car.
“This was a surprise basically for qualifying, something you are not expecting, very big difference. It induces front locking, the more understeer, definitely that’s where the lap times was lost in qualifying. It was a surprise that the car was not co-relating to what it was suppose to have. So it was more an issue on my side of the garage than anything,” summed up Ocon.
Esteban Ocon doesn’t think he warranted a penalty for his move against Lance Stroll in F1 Italian GP, as he was surprised by lack of co-relation on his side.
After low-key qualifying, Haas’ Ocon tried a long run strategy in F1 Italian GP at Monza to come through in points. But his chance was derailed after a tussle with Stroll. In the lead-up to Turn 4, the two made slight contact when the Canadian was sent on grass and was forced to back-off.
The stewards deemed Ocon as guilty party and handed him a 5s time penalty for forcing another driver off track. The Frenchman didn’t think he warranted a penalty considering that the track is narrow, especially in the Turn 4 sequence. “I didn’t re-watched it, but I don’t think so,” he said to media.
“It is a place where the track narrows out. So, even if you stay on your line, the track narrows, so the driver on the outside will always have a wheel on the grass. It is more the case of the track narrowing, more than me not leaving the space to my friend Lance.”
His race was undone by the penalty and also bad qualifying. In a grand prix where degradation was low, the strategy didn’t play a huge role since they were fighting for only couple of places in the points. Ocon noted his struggles with understeer and was surprised that sim numbers didn’t translate.
“No, no, but it [strategy] was worth trying in the end,” said Ocon. “The tyres were getting quicker and quicker. It just made sense to keep going. I think, yeah, not a great weekend on our side, especially after qualifying. We found out few things that were not correct with the car. Obviously, we tried to rectify for the race, but it was a bit late and it put us in a bad position for the race.
“In the race, the pace is the pace you have but everybody follows each other, you can’t really pass. So, that really didn’t help us but overall, lot of things to review and learn it from this weekend and hopefully we can put it in next weekend. We will try to fix it as a team. Obviously the issue was quite a lot of understeer in qualifying, we found out we were lacking front downforce on the car.
“This was a surprise basically for qualifying, something you are not expecting, very big difference. It induces front locking, the more understeer, definitely that’s where the lap times was lost in qualifying. It was a surprise that the car was not co-relating to what it was suppose to have. So it was more an issue on my side of the garage than anything,” summed up Ocon.
Here’s moment between Esteban Ocon and Lance Stroll: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-italian-grand-prix-ocon-hit-with-a-penalty-for-forcing-stroll-off-track.1842627223193339219
Here’s Oliver Bearman on spin with Carlos Sainz
Here’s Lance Stroll on the situation
