Shockingly, Sergio Perez won his first-ever Formula One Race at the Sakhir GP.
When it comes to headlines, the past weekend delivered quite a few. Lewis Hamilton’s missing the race piqued the interest of many, but what followed was a crazy, incident-filled race that left everyone on the edge of their seats.
If there were tears of joy in the Perez Family, there were tears of despair in the Russell family, who lost out on his very first win(“Twice,” as he put it).
The paddock was in awe of the two drivers as both drivers grabbed the headlines for different reasons.
While some talked about the travesty it would be if Perez didn’t line up on the grid next year, the others talked about how a star was born in Russell as he outdrove Valtteri Bottas in his very first weekend in a Mercedes.
Funnily enough, amongst all this, there was this driver who quietly put together a solid performance, kept a fast-charging Racing Point behind, and achieved his first podium in F1. Esteban Ocon and his first podium in Formula One went under the radar despite finishing P2 in a race where there was too much action up to and down the grid, and it was too easy to make a mistake and slip up.
How often does it happen that you finish Runners up in arguably the 4th-5th Fastest Car on the grid but still don’t get much attention? Not often. However, Ocon might be slightly miffed at the lack of recognition for his performance by Toto Wolff, who spent all his air-time raving about Russell, completely forgetting about the “Other Mercedes Prodigy” in Ocon who did achieve the podium, that too in a Renault.
Esteban Ocon’s first-ever F1 Podium went under the Radar amongst other headlines.
A Faultless Drive
It was a faultless drive from Ocon, as he kept his nose clean in the first-lap mayhem and looked after his medium tyres during the first stint. A lengthy first stint meant he was out on much fresher tyres and easily reeled in the likes of Sainz, Kvyat, Ricciardo, and Gasly after he pitted. But what did set up the race for him, though, was the overtake on Lance Stroll at Turn 4, as it would eventually cement a podium finish.
On a track where Renault had no answer for Sergio Perez’s speed at a racing point, Ocon couldn’t do much to keep the Mexican behind and had to let him go. On the other hand, he could still keep the other Racing Point behind despite Stroll having softer and fresher tyres on his car. In the end, the chips did fall in place with a safety car goof-up by Mercedes, and then a puncture on Russell’s car gave the Frenchman his first podium in F1.
A much-needed result
Driving alongside Ricciardo, 2020 has not been an impressive year for Ocon.
In many ways, it was a much-needed result for the Frenchman, who has been unable to make the same impact this season as he did in his first F1 stint. He’s losing out heavily in Qualifying to Ricciardo(15-1), while Ricciardo has almost double the points of Esteban in the standings.
Looking at the numbers, questions have been raised against Ocon, and there were suggestions that Renault might even look for a replacement for Pierre Gasly for 2022. However, if we look closely, Ocon has significantly closed the gap with Ricciardo in terms of pace.
There’s not much between the two in terms of a gap, but Ricciardo still enjoys a slight pace advantage when it matters. This was expected, as this is Ricciardo’s second season with the team, and he is arguably one of the elite drivers on the grid right now. This result would help Ocon build on his confidence as he looks forward to a fresh start in 2021.
What’s Next for Ocon?
Fernando Alonso will return to F1 with Ocon as his teammate at Renault.
Ocon needs to build on this result and try to beat Ricciardo in the last race of the season at Abu Dhabi. After that, you have Fernando Alonso stepping into the cockpit next to him, which would be an entirely different beast altogether.
One thing that Alonso does more than any other driver is divert all the team’s resources towards himself. For a young and upcoming driver, that’s the worst thing that could happen, as you don’t feel the confidence of the team around you, and more often than not, it leads to underperformance.
Ask Nelson Piquet Jr., Romain Grosjean, or Stoffel Vandoorne, some drivers whose careers were ruined by having Fernando Alonso as their teammate.
When Ocon came to Formula One, he had a certain hype around him. He was the driver who had beaten Max Verstappen in Junior Categories. A year away from the sport and an underwhelming year at Renault have shifted the spotlight to George Russell, Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris, and others.
For Ocon to get back into the reckoning, he must start beating his teammates regularly and becoming a team leader. It’s definitely a tough ask when your teammates are Daniel Ricciardo and Fernando Alonso, but the more rigid the task, the bigger the reward for Ocon because if he does beat Alonso in the same car next year, then all eyes will be back on him.
If he doesn’t, then we might be looking at the end of one of the bigger prospects to emerge from junior categories.