Following a crazy Qualifying Saturday, in which weather conditions played havok with the running - Esteban would line up P15 for the start of the British Grand Prix.
The British Grand Prix was a race filled with drama from start to finish at a sold-out Silverstone, as Esteban managed to bring his A522 to the pits, after receiving damage from the aftermath of the Turn 1 chaos, before the race was Red Flagged to clear up all the debris from a huge first corner multi-car incident.
Esteban took the restart on Soft compound tyres and made an immediate positive impression! Despite the famage, the Frenchman, edged towards the top ten and into points-scoring contention and was running in P7 by Lap 11.
Esteban pitted for Hards on lap 22, emerging in P8 and managing his race well in a solid points scoring finish.
However Esteban would suffer a retirement with a suspected fuel pump issue on the old start-finish straight with 14 laps to go - bringing out the Safety Car and sadly the end of Esteban's British Grand Prix weekend.
Esteban Ocon (Started P15, DNF):
"The most important thing to take out of this race is that Zhou is OK after that massive crash. It happened right in front of me, and I was lucky to avoid most of it, but then I sustained damage on the right side of the car from contact with Alex [Albon]. I have to say, the guys did an incredible job getting the car repaired and ready for the race restart, so thanks and well done to them.
We did well at the restart and the pace in the car was good. A fuel pump issue on lap 38 ended our race unfortunately and we had to retire the car.
All in all, it wasn’t a smooth weekend with some of the car issues in Q2 and today during the race, so we’ll need to look into all of this closely. It was a weekend with a lot of learning and I’m happy for the team with the solid points from Fernando today. Onto the next race in just a few days’ time.”
The next race will see the team head to the Red Bull Ring next weekend, for the Austrian Grand Prix on the 8-10 July.
