Esteban Ocon has had a journeyman Formula One career. He started his time in the sport with the soon to be bankrupt Manor Racing in 2016 before moving to Sarah Force India the following season. There he experienced the Mercedes V6 turbo hybrid for the first time, although his Silverstone based team did not have the success of their engine supplier.

Ocon was dumped by the newly named Racing Point for the 2019 season and became the reserve driver of Mercedes. The following year Renault picked up the French driver to race alongside Daniel Riciciardo, who eclipsed his team mate scoring double the points of Ocon.

The following year Ocon scored a famous victory for the French owned F1 team with Fernando Alonso holding off the charging Lewis Hamilton in Hungary over the closing laps to secure a victory for Alpine. Yet Esteban is not the easiest of characters to work with and his long standing grudge against fellow Alpine F1 driver, Pierre Gasly in Monaco last year, saw the pair come together on the opening lap after the red flag had been thrown.

 

 

 

Ocon incensed Alpine team boss

This incensed the then team boss who declared live on French television, that Ocon would suffer “consequences.” Before the next Grand Prix ir was announced Esteban was leaving the Alpine team at the end of the year.

Ocon found a home with the Haas F1 team for this season replacing the much valued departing Nico Huklenberg. He was awarded a test drive in the 2024 post season event in Abu Dhabi, where he first experienced the Ferrari power unit in the  back of the Haas’ 2024-spec VF-24.

Ocon expressed surprise at the difference between the Renault and Ferrari powertrains but now sees the huge potential of the Scuderia’s power unit. Reflecting on his first run with Ferrari power the French man said: “It was a bit of a shock initially in Abu Dhabi, but on track, performance-wise, it’s working super well and it fits very well with the strength of the car as well. So, yeah, all good on that side,” he told Motorsport Week.

The controls for the Ferrari power unit were completely different from what he was used to at Renault, yet Ocon now believes there are significant positives despite the steep learning curve.

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Ocon sees huge difference in power

“Yeah, of course there are differences,” Ocon said during pre-season testing in Bahrain. “I’m not going to comment about the differences itself, but there’s a lot of positives with the Ferrari power units and initially it’s a very different way of using all the systems.

“But we’ve simplified a lot and it now feels a lot more common to how I would have imagined to use it.” Ocon is not the only driver to switch power units for this season as Carlos Sanz made the move from Ferrari to a Mercedes powered Williams this winter. He too admitted the biggest change was in the engines and how the Mercedes laid down its power compared to the Ferrari.

“Definitely the thing you feel the most when you change teams, the moment there’s a power unit involved, it’s the power unit,” Sainz explained after his test. 

“The noises, the vibrations, the sound, everything just changes completely. So even if I went out on the pitch trying to understand the aerodynamics and the tyres and the feeling of the mechanical sides of the car, the only thing I could have to adapt for the first few laps was just how different a power unit can be.”

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Haas testing inconclusive

“So yeah, that’s probably the biggest change.

“Also the way the power unit operates in terms of switches, especially nowadays in Formula 1 with so much going on on our steering wheels, with the deployment, the battery, things like this, procedures, safety procedures of the engine and the power unit, it’s definitely the biggest change that I’m having to adapt so far in Williams.”

Of course the Ferrari power in the Haas is not comparable to it sitting in the scarlet red of the Maranello produced SF-25, the Frenchman will need to learn how to master the chassis setup too.

Yet his surprise when driving the American car  bodes well for the Haas team given he appeared to be suggesting it was an upgrade on what he had at Alpine. Haas F1 were difficult to place in this year’s pre-season testing in Bahrain given they ran heavy and concentrated one race simulations rather than outright pace.

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Haas F1 boss appears content

They were only the ninth quickest over a single lap, but they looked competitive enough to remain in the midfield pack. As team principal Ayao Komatsu said: “we are in the ballpark, I don’t know exactly where”.

Aside from the problem with the bodywork, with Ollie Bearman losing a piece of his engine cover the final day (team-mate Esteban Ocon had a similar problem at the car’s Silverstone shakedown), it was a smooth test. And that trouble was put down to being too aggressive, with a straightforward fix presumably involving beefing up the fasteners.

All signs are that the Haas will be a solid mid-field outfit although the car did look at times to understeer at low speeds. Yet there’s no reason they can’t hit the heights of 2024 when the car was regularly fifth quickest behind the big four.

The tightrope McLaren and Norris walk

 

 

 

 

Verstappen and FIA president ‘strange bedfellows’

Max Verstappen is one of the most straight talking amongst the F1 drivers, he says what he thinks and is a dream for the F1 media. The world champion was heavily criticised for his defensive moves against Lando Norris in Austria last year when the pair collided, yet he defended his driving style as within the rules.

Again at the US Grand Prix, he and Norris found themselves arguing over the same piece of track at the end of the long back straight. Norris in fact overtook the Red Bull; drover, but Max knew the rules stated if he claimed the apex of the corner first, he had the right to use all the track on exit regardless of where Norris’ McLaren was positioned.

In the run up to the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix, FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem had called on his race stewards to clamp down on bad language used by the drivers, suggesting they were more like rappers than professionals sportsmen. At the opening FIA press conference of the weekend on Thursday, Verstappen described how his car had felt at the previous race weekend in Baku as follows: “As soon as I went into qualifying, I knew the car was fucked.”…. READ MORE