Esteban Ocon expands on his radio call towards Haas and Nico Hulkenberg in F1 Mexico GP, as the German shades his own team.
It wasn’t the start for Alpine’s Ocon in F1 Mexico GP as he dropped last on the hard compound. He had much to do until a red flag helped his cause. That re-start worked well as he gained three places to be 10th behind Haas’ Hulkenberg.
They both were passed by McLaren’s Lando Norris which meant, it was a fight for the last point. Ocon then made a really strange radio call to Alpine where he stated, “You can say to Haas that I’m gonna go for it, so they better be ready.”
It didn’t happen straight up as without the straightline speed, Ocon had work hard and wait for Hulkenberg to make mistake on degrading tyres. He eventually got through to score the final point in what was a difficult and tough race for the Alpine driver.
“The goal of that message is that they should warn Nico that he has to leave the space because I was going to go,” said Ocon to media when asked about the radio call. “The only chance I had was basically to go on braking, so it was going to be a muscle move, that was to warn them, there was no intention of saying ‘yeah, I’m going to fight and go past you’, it was more to warn them that it was going to be a muscular pass.
“He made few mistakes so I hope [they conveyed the message]. We gained three places at the re-start and the pace was good then. It was a hard fought point with Nico at the end, we were not fast on straightline this weekend which makes things difficult but we still got it and it feels good, we never give up, that’s the sentence of the day, it was really good,” summed up Ocon.
On Hulkenberg’s side, the German had his apprehension on the medium tyres post the re-start. He knew it will be difficult to hold on and admitted to making life difficult for others. Towards the end, he dropped off and was seemingly sending a message to Haas. He even had a respond to Ocon’s radio on social media stating, “You must really like my rear end”.
“The last two laps I took for myself and showed our guys what seems real slip is,” said Hulkenberg. “Valtteri even said I had smoke coming off my rear tyres. So proud of that. [I was] just having a bit of fun, I mean it was game over anyways, at the end that was driving on the rim rather than rubber. So it doesn’t matter.”
Here’s Kevin Magnussen on his crash
Here’s how F1 Mexico GP panned out
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