Esteban Ocon managed to secure 10th position at the 2026 F1 Japanese GP, scoring his first point of the campaign.
Although he had a decent first stint, teammate Ollie Bearman retired after a big crash at Spoon while trying an overtake manoeuvre on Franco Colapinto. The Alpine man had ended up super clipping and the Brit needed to take avoiding action.
Haas F1 driver Esteban Ocon reflects on missed opportunities and a decent performance
While his teammate was thankfully okay following the incident, the safety car compromised Esteban Ocon. Running in P9 and holding a 3s gap before boxing on lap 19, Lawson and Bortoleto got the jump on him as they had a cheap stop behind it. Nonetheless, he did find a way past the Brazilian after the race resumed.
After a second VSC in Australia and then a safety car in China screwed him, the 2021 Hungarian GP winner could only laugh at his misfortune in the print media pen.
“100% bad luck so far, it’s pretty good going. Every race I’ve pitted in the wrong time. It’s not our fault by taking the wrong decision, it just seems to be always at the wrong moment.
“I’m glad that all is ok, that’s the main thing, but you have 3 laps before and 3 laps after that change the whole race. So I lost 2 positions, I lost to Gabi and to Liam. I managed to overtake Gabi at the restart with a lot of fighting going on.”
He also felt he had a lot more pace than Liam Lawson but remained behind him thanks to the difficulties of overtaking. On the evidence of the first stint, he was right to believe it.
This stopped him from trying to stay close to Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly. He explained that they were the target for the race and that he wanted to see if Haas had the pace to match them.
He added that the team had extracted the maximum from the car in the conditions they could control, but believed the result should have been more than just one point.
Outqualifying Ollie Bearman and running ahead of him in the race was very important following a tricky start to 2026.
“But I got stuck with Liam and I had quite a lot more pace than him, so I could not get attached to the waggon of Pierre and Max, which was a shame. Because I wanted to see if we had that pace and if we could hold on to their pace, because they were the target for us today.
“But yeah, overall a positive weekend on our side. I think we got the maximum out of the car in the conditions that we could control. So it feels like it should have been much more than one point, but we will take it.”
Ocon on race conditions at the 2026 F1 Japanese GP
Esteban Ocon explained that he enjoyed the first half of the race when there was no safety car. After it came into play, he said the Grand Prix became much less fun and enjoyable due to the issues faced.
He also pointed out that it is difficult to overtake at Suzuka and that boost usage was a major problem, as using it could actually make drivers lose time. As a result, he focused on staying consistent to avoid any potential loss of places.
“I enjoyed the first half of the race before the safety car. Basically after that it was not fun. It was clearly not enjoyable, but that’s part of the race. In Suzuka it’s very difficult to overtake. Boost usage has been a nightmare, if you use it you actually go backwards. So we just try to stay on baseline and just keep pushing.”
