Esteban Ocon, punished by traffic, will start 12th at the Mexican GP: "We had the speed"

While Haas made improvements to its VF-25 during the United States Grand Prix, the drivers led by Ayao Komatsu seemed satisfied with the developments since the start of the Mexican weekend. However, Esteban Ocon failed to take full advantage of this and will only start twelfth for the Mexican Grand Prix. Ahead of him, his teammate Oliver Bearman, managed to reach Q3 and will start tenth.

After a very close qualifying session, Esteban Ocon did not hide his frustration. We were in the running to be fifth. It's a real shame, regrets the Norman to Canal+. On this last lap, we only had one set of tires in Q2. We were in P5 in Q1 but I had to deal with traffic, with Yuki tsunoda especially in turn six and dirty air there too. I was behind Charles in the last sector. They didn't do anything wrong, but I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, laments Esteban Ocon.

The interested party, however, wanted to salute the successful efforts of his team.. "We were able to pass easily by three hundredths of a second and I think we could have continued to improve. We have to say 'well done' to the team because we managed to make good progress this weekend in qualifying. You can't see it in the results, but we had the speed."

Despite his disappointment, the Frenchman remains optimistic about Sunday's race. Starting twelfth, Esteban Ocon can hope to move back into the top 10 and potentially score some points for his team. « A lot can happen. We're in the right place, not far from the points. We have to choose the right strategy – which hasn't been the case recently. It's not going to be easy because there's a lot of uncertainty with the hard tire. We don't really know if the soft one will last. We'll see. »

If Haas manages to fully exploit the improvements to its car and implementing an effective strategy, Esteban Ocon could hope to score valuable points. Having done this in the past, the Americans must find their rhythm again after a somewhat unsuccessful United States Grand Prix on home soil.

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