The expected miracle did not come for Ocon in Saudi Arabia

What to remember from the weekend ofEsteban Ocon in Jeddah? Not much. A week after his fine comeback in the points in Bahrain, the Norman was hoping to ride his momentum and pocket a few more points in Saudi Arabia. Alas, everything went wrong for the new driver Haas, on a circuit that had been good for him in the past. On Saturday, in qualifying, the Evreux driver was eliminated in Q1 and largely beaten by Oliver Bearman (+0″556 for the Frenchman over the Briton). A slap in the face when you consider the experience gap between the two teammates at Haas.

Nevertheless, Esteban Ocon – often stronger in the race than in qualifying – hoped to be able to move up the order on Sunday. To do this, he had to opt for an offbeat strategy… and hope that the events of the race would allow him to get back into the points. Hope was given when, on the first lap, the collision between Yuki tsunoda et Pierre Gasly forced race control to deploy the safety car, giving the Frenchman the opportunity to get rid of his medium tires. Starting on hard tires on the second lap, the Haas driver had to rely on another Safety Car to make his gamble pay off... a Safety Car that ultimately never appeared on track.

49 laps on hard tires for Ocon

Result: forced to run almost the entire race on hard tires, Esteban Ocon could only manage 14th place, behind his teammate Oliver Bearman. "We had a very aggressive strategy. We did the whole race on the same set of tires, which was too much towards the end and we had to ease off on the last lap, but we had no one left to fight with anyway, confided the Tricolore on Canal+ after the race. Nevertheless, we fought for positions that were interesting, we were in the points at one point and that's what we wanted, for something to happen and for us to be in those positions. We did what we had to. Nevertheless, it was a pretty complicated weekend.

Esteban Ocon therefore ends his triple headers with four points scored in his last three meetings, all won in Bahrain. A mixed result for the Frenchman who prefers to focus on his team's progress and the overall result of the American team. "The positive thing about these three Grands Prix is ​​that we are one of the teams that has scored the most points in this triple header. We need to be in these positions all the time, like we were in Bahrain, to put everything in order and be more consistent in our performance.", admitted the 27-year-old driver, determined to rectify the situation in two weeks, in Miami, for Haas' first home race.

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