Esteban Ocon seeking confidence in Las Vegas

The French driver failed to top the timesheets on Friday with his Haas VF-25. Esteban Ocon finished in the bottom three places in each of Friday's free practice sessions at the Nevada track.

As always, the cold greeted the field in the "Sin City", Esteban Ocon confessed that Pirelli tire heating remains a problem for Haas at the moment, but that the precious minutes of running in Free Practice 2 could help the American team find solutions.

“It was difficult, as always here; getting the tires up to temperature is always tricky. It was still interesting, though; we were able to identify what needs to be changed for Saturday, even though we weren't able to complete any laps on soft tires during the second session. It was a chaotic session, but we obtained enough data to work with for the rest of the weekend.”

The Las Vegas circuit is quite surprising for a street track, as it features a long straight of nearly two kilometers. This forces drivers to run with low downforce, which in turn limits their confidence, particularly in braking zones, as the cars are rather light to handle.

“Everything will be fine, we’re going to work on getting more temperature in the tires. The important thing on this circuit is to be confident under braking. We were lacking a bit of that confidence, and a bit of straight-line speed. We’ll try to get both back for Saturday, and see where that puts us in qualifying.”

Esteban Ocon and Haas have one more session to find that all-important confidence before qualifying, which will take place at 5 a.m. French time this Saturday.

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