Esteban Ocon put in a fine qualifying performance to start P8 for Sunday’s F1 Abu Dhabi GP. It’s only his third Q3 appearance in a Grand Prix qualifying session this year. The last one was in Monaco.
Huge changes overnight lead to a massive turnaround for Esteban Ocon in F1 Abu Dhabi GP qualifying
Following FP2 where he was only P16, 0.4s and 12 spots behind Ollie Bearman, the 2021 Hungarian GP winner was at a loss for words regarding his performance.
Speaking in the print media pen post-qualifying, Esteban Ocon explained how Haas made massive changes on the car to try and cure the issues he has been facing for months now. Brakes have been a consistent talking point.
While he is unsure if Haas will ever get to the bottom of the gremlins, he was relieved to have a car he could fight with again.
“We are still unsure. We are still unsure.
“But we’ve changed a lot of things on the car. All the parameters and the ones that you would not even think of, really.
“After yesterday, I was at the lowest point, really. I didn’t know where to look, I didn’t know what to do.
“We were half a second from where we should be, on a track where I’ve done a million laps, and I didn’t know.
“At this point, what do you do? So I said, ‘yeah, I’m driving bad, I’m pretty bad,’ that’s how it is.
“But this morning, we’ve changed everything, and we’ve turned the car around.
“And the car suddenly, and we still have to figure out why, but anyway, it’s finished now […] suddenly, it came to where it should be and I could compete.”
An encouraging FP3 leads to a strong qualifying for Esteban Ocon at F1 Abu Dhabi GP
In final practice, Esteban Ocon was P6, 0.004s faster than teammate Ollie Bearman. It showed the former Alpine driver was confident in the car as he explained the differences to Friday.
After making it through by 0.060s in Q1 by placing P12, the Frenchman was very strong in Q2. P10 following the first runs, a 1:23.023 saw him make it P9 and book a spot in Q3. He was in by 0.018s as Bearman just missed out.
Come Q3, he missed out on P6 by 0.011s. Nonetheless, P8 is a great place to start considering his difficulties over the last 3 months or so.
“I was having some decent entry stability, I was not having the front and rear locking that I had in the previous ten races.
“I could improve my driving with the car, because there’s always the way where you’re entering a bit earlier than Ollie, so that’s why your exit is not as good, or that’s why your braking is not as good.
“But when the car allows you to do it, it shows today that we were able to fight again, and honestly it feels great.
“And I can’t thank the team enough for their support, for continuing pushing, and for the support that they’re always giving me really.
“But there’s still a lot of question marks, which I don’t know if we will answer.
“But today paid off, and yesterday was a complete disaster.”
Esteban Ocon left to rue what could have been
Since a brilliant P7 in Monaco, Ocon has scored only 12 points across Grands Prix and Sprints.
He was left to ponder how much more was possible this season if the car was working like he wanted. Ollie Bearman has been consistently collecting points recently.
Heading into the F1 Abu Dhabi GP, Esteban Ocon and Haas will need to outscore Aston Martin by 7 points to take P7 from them. Sauber are only 5 behind and Haas need to be wary of Gabriel Bortoleto tomorrow.
“It’s such a shame, it’s a big shame, because I feel that we could have had a lot more points than what we had, unfortunately.
“But with a lot of if, you can remake the world, but I think it’s good learning for us. We should keep going on that. Hopefully it’s a good foundation for next year.”
