Esteban Ocon: “The car was on a wire”

Very fit in free practice, Esteban Ocon could hope to achieve a good performance in qualifying. Ultimately the story was quite different. His car in less than its form at the start of the weekend, the Norman stopped at the gates of Q3 and will start 11th this Sunday.

« We have had a very solid performance since the start of the weekend. I felt the car well but there were some rather strange signs on certain stints where we were losing performance. In FP3 for example, I was 14th with the hard tires. We changed a few things and regained performance.

There were signs of fragility on a few points. At times we were less comfortable with the car, less confident. We were losing performance. Unfortunately, we were in this situation in qualifying. I had more difficulty with the car which didn't give me confidence on my first run in Q1. It improved during the session but it wasn't enough ».

To explain this poor performance in qualifying, Esteban admitted that the car was working “ on a thread this weekend. We've barely touched anything since the end of EL3 ».

Eleventh on the grid for the Sakhir Grand Prix, the Habs will benefit from the choice of tires before the start unlike the Top 10 drivers. It will be a long race so we have a little hope of securing a good result ».