Why Losing Esteban Ocon Would be the Biggest Mistake of 2018

With 44 races to his name at the age of only 21 and having collected 132 points within his first 3 seasons so far, Esteban Ocon is a young driver of the future. Or at least he should be. Before the summer break, Force India went into administration, only to be saved by Lance Stroll's consortium. Although this was great news for the sport, it meant Stroll, arguably once again, bought himself a seat into F1. This buying of a seat means one of the Force India drivers will be replaced for next year, if not, by the end of the season. With Sergio Perez, Ocon's team mate, having shares in the team, it points to Ocon being the one left to be pushed off the shelf. However, this shouldn't be seen as him being a bad driver, as many would argue that out of the three French man on the grid, he is the best. With 43 race starts under his name and only 3 retirements, Ocon is one of the most reliable driver on the grid; he even held a mighty record of 27 races before he had a retirement in Brazil last year due to Romain Grosjean colliding with him.

Ocon started his racing career in 2006 in karting; he finished 8th within the French mini-championship only to return in 2007 to become champion. In 2008, he switched to the Euro series until 2011. His winnings within the KF3 championship and 2nd place in European championship led to another change in series in 2012 for the young French man to the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0, where he scored a podium in his first year and finished 14th. He came back with a fiery ambition to win in the Hockenheimring and ended in a respectable third place within the championship. However, the youngster also made a debut in F3 in the same year in the Grand Prix of Macau and in 2014 raced in the European F3 and won it. He won 9 races within the season and beat familiar names such as Max Verstappen. However, the younger Verstappen was pick upped before Ocon by Red Bull, making his way into Toro Rosso. Eric Boullier, however, noticed Ocon and, being of strong French blood himself, took him under his wing and selected him for the young driver programme for Lotus in 2014. Ocon finally got the chance in 2014 in a Lotus F1 car on the Yas Marina Circuit in free practice and clocked 28 laps. In 2015, he was asked by Force India to test for them before switching to DTM to only return to F1 to become Mercedes’ test driver. In 2016, he moved to Renault to be their reserve driver after they bought over Lotus. His first race was not with Renault however, but Manor as he replaced Rio Haryanto at the Belgian Grand Prix and stayed to finish the end of the season. He scored no points but became quickly faster than high profiled Pascal Wehrlein, being faster than him in the last two races. The driver had to make a move in 2017 due to Manor going under and therefore was signed by Force India where he raked in 87 points and has seen since 3rd in Qualifying in Italy, a result he managed to replicate this year in Spa.

Ocon is by no means a driver that is easily forgotten, his performance to score third in qualifying in Spa this year was a miraculous achievement, especially after what the team had been through in the weeks before. Although Ocon has had 4 DNFs this season due to many reasons, he is still only one point behind Perez who has seen only 1 DNF along with a podium in Azerbaijan. Their main average finishing positions also reflect this, with Ocon scoring 8.64. compared to Perez's 10.29. Gerhard Berger, former Formula One driver for Ferrari, commented on the prospect of Ocon not having a seat saying it would be a 'complete shame for F1' and with his stats you can understand where he is coming from. The Singaporean Grand Prix was arguably a perfect example for why Ocon deserves the seat more than his team mate Perez. Ocon saw a first lap retirement, hitting the wall on the turn 3 after attempting a outside pass on his team mate. However, the crash is highly debatable with Perez seemingly hitting his team mate and not leaving enough room for the driver. The incident was recorded as a race incident by the stewards but Anthony Davidson later commented on the crash that the onboard on Perez's car "sheds new light on it [the incident]", leaving him the question "was it oversteer or did he do it on purpose?". However Davidson did come to the conclusion that Perez would never "admit the truth". It did stir up Force India team principle, Otmar Szafnauer, who seemed furious over the incident and told the press, "we're back to the old rules" referring to the rules put in after the Spa incident between the two team mates in 2017, leading to the team having team orders to avoid accidents such as seen in Singapore. Otmar even seemed to shame Perez saying "if it's your team mate, you've got to give them room" which in the past, Perez has been unforgiving with. Perez later then collided with William's driver, Sirotkin, causing a drive through for them and car damage meaning he limped to a feeble 16th after qualifying a superb 7th. Essentially, Perez wrecked what could have been a massive point scoring weekend with both cars qualifying within the top 10. Post race and even post-incident with Ocon, he seemed very apologetic saying to the press "I'm very sorry for the day the team had in general" but to me, he seems to take little blame for what happened saying "it's racing". Ocon commented well after his accident, refusing to answer some of the questions rightfully and doing the team well to the press. However an interesting comment he made was "what I'm going to analyse is that we had great pace the whole weekend, it was supposed to be a great weekend for both of us and now I've come out of the race with 0 points and that is terrible."

With rumours circulating this may have been Ocon's last race for the pink panthers, it seems a depressing note to end on and a note that reminds us what needs to change in F1 but has always existed. seats based on money not merit. Ocon is revered as a future world champion by many critics and fans alike but due to not owning the team or even having shares within it, he will lose his seat to a racer who arguably is not even F1 worthy. Stroll has seen a podium, unlike Ocon, but by pure luck due to the chaotic sense of the 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Jacque Villeneuve even famously commented that he believes that Lance stroll is the worst rookie in F1 history following his 2017 performance, commenting "results speak for themselves". It's not just Villeneuve thinking this either, with Hamilton and Vettel both standing up for the young Frenchman after his performance in Spa, with Hamilton commenting on how Ocon "conducts" himself as being "exceptional" and saying that "some teams, rather than take the up and coming kid, they rather take money." Vettel said someone "should be considering for signing him somewhere next year" with hopes at McLaren at the time, only to be dashed by a new rookie, Lando Norris to arrive for 2019.

The removal has also caused outrage with team boss of Mercedes Toto Wolff, who told Sky Sports F1 "what has been going on this year in July and August was just unbelievable." This led to Christian Horner, team boss of Aston Martin Red Bull Racing, quipping that "I'm sure if Toto wrote a cheque he could get a seat at Williams". Horner's remarks may be because of his beliefs that Ocon not having a seat is down to him not respecting the driver programme such as other teams and not rewarding the drivers. Ferrari have rewarded young driver, Charles LeClerc with a seat at the team and same goes for Red Bull who have moved up young driver Pierre Gasly to the team after a season at Toro Rosso. However this was arguably not down to choice as Daniel Ricciardo moves to Renault for 2019. This leads the argument of should have Mercedes promoted Ocon to the team indeed of keeping Bottas?

Mercedes is the only team to see no driver change out of the big three teams and at the moment, they seem to be the team with everything to lose. Keeping Bottas in 2019 gives them two experienced drivers, but Bottas seems to be losing the competitive streak seen in 2017 with his two wins and even at the beginning of the year where he could have won several times. Therefore, it leaves the question of when the new boys arrive, will he be able to be as good at attacking or even defending. As Wolff said himself, Bottas is a good "wingman" but not much else right now and there is a feeling that he even he is aware of this when he said he would be "willing to help" Hamilton's efforts towards winning the 2018 season. Bottas has a one year contract with an option year for 2020 but it could be seen that Ocon was supposedly meant to take that seat in 2020. With him leaving F1, it arguably throws a spanner in the works of the best team on the grid and therefore could be highly detrimental to their future. However, Ocon still may gain the seat, a year out of F1 at this pinnical stage as new changes come in could be costly with new front wings and back wings coming next year; this would at least explain Wolff's anger. The team put themselves in this position before by not rewarding their system as seen with Pascal Werhlein, an old team mate of Ocon at Manor. Werhlein was meant to be part of the new generation of F1, putting in impressvie results in both years racing for Manor and Sauber but at the end of the season, he lost his seat to the young Montesquieu driver, LeClerc, putting without a seat and another Mercedes young driver to be out of F1. The team seem to be unable to help their drivers within the sport and this may be because, unlike Red Bull or even Ferrari, they lack a B team of such. Torro Rosso act as a feeder to Red Bull and same for Sauber to Ferrari. Mercedes see no feeder team and rely on their engine suppliers who have no obligation to keep the Mercedes young drivers like the other teams. This may be the reason for the movement by Toto Wolff wanting to see 3 cars in an F1 team. With three cars, Ocon may not be losing his seat but other teams are against this as having two cars is a financial struggle for many of the midfield teams, such as Racing Point Force India. Also, having three more cars to compete against will only push the midfield further down the grid and obliterate any chance of a podium or high scoring points.

The lack of seat for such a fabulous driver such as Ocon arguably comes down to one thing. Mercedes not respecting their young driver programme. The team have now seen two of their young drivers being neglected and other teams like Red Bull, Ferrari and even McLaren, understand the importance of it and until Mercedes realise how important it is to bring new talent up to the front and to respect it, they will see themselves fall further back. With 2 young drivers moving up the ranks, Mercedes will see hot competition from two drivers who are desperate to win in F1 for the first time and the risks they will make will be much higher than Bottas and even Hamilton to some extent. Ocon should be a warning sign to the silver arrows as such a talented driver shouldn't be left without a seat. He outperforms his team mate on the track and in the press. Ocon deserves a seat and, until Mercedes either let him go off their contract or put him the car he deserves, we will see a talent lost to the sport and another reason why F1 needs a check up.

Hamish Shackleton