Esteban Ocon doesn’t wish to compare situation at Alpine with Haas, but he notes it to be different as he adds on working with new race engineer.
It was not the greatest of starts for Ocon and Alpine last year where they were mostly at the back of the field in the initial races. Midway he decided to switch to Haas for 2025 in the hope for a better run. But the start with the American F1 team was a shocker, not just for him but the team as well.
They found out a fundamental issue with the car at the high-speed corners. It was a test bed for them in Australia. It looked like the same in China, but they were placed slightly better than their expectations. They could fend off rivals and Ocon managed to hung on to the lower rug of points as well.
So much so that he ended up as the best of the rest in seventh and was promoted to fifth due to Ferrari’s disqualification. At the same time, Oliver Bearman climbed up to 10th and got promoted to eighth. Even though they haven’t solved the issue, but they showed that some of the remedies worked.
For Ocon, the current situation is not the same as Alpine as he thinks. “No [it is not same as last year],” he said to media. “Yes [it is better now]. I am not going to compare to last year exactly but yes, the way we are planning things to try and come out of this is very straightforward and very clear.
“Until we come out, it is not a success but I am happy with how everyone has reacted to the first race, no one is hiding – us drivers included – on what we have to improve, what we have to do better. And that’s very good,” summed up Ocon, who also has another task to adjust with the new team.
Both Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz have had their cases of troubles and it is no less for Ocon, who has F1’s first female race engineer, Laura Mueller, at his side. The Frenchman knows it is a learning process as it is with everything and the first race had the challenges, which they faced together.
“It is very important to get as much feedback from each side, if Laura asks me to say something specifically, I’ll be more clear in one specific area and then I need tell her also what I need from her,” explained Ocon. “That’s what we have been working on since we first worked together in Abu Dhabi.
“But for a wet race, how difficult it was in terms of communication with the pit wall, strategy, the information that Laura had to give me, there are many people who are new to their position including myself in the team, and I think we have done pretty well for what the conditions have been.
“Of course, there are times when maybe I needed bit more information, there are times when I needed a lot less information because I was quite busy at the wheel. But I think we did the bigger mistake on laps to the grid, which was okay. After that it was good,” summed up Ocon.
Here’s Haas on double points in China
