Esteban Ocon has reflected on his rookie season at Force India, admitting to mistakes that led to multiple collisions with teammate Sergio Perez. The incidents, spanning 2017 and 2018, cost the team valuable points despite the car's strong performance. Ocon attributes the clashes to his youth and inexperience.
Esteban Ocon entered his first full Formula 1 season in 2017 with Force India at age 20, following a nine-race stint at Manor. As a Mercedes protégé, he faced significant pressure racing alongside the experienced Sergio Perez, who was in his seventh F1 campaign and known for six podiums.
"Yeah, it was a lot of pressure," Ocon said in F1's latest Off The Grid video. "I was racing against someone very experienced, you know, Checo. He was a consistent scorer in the midfield – probably the most consistent."
Force India's VJM10 was the fourth-quickest car on the grid, offering potential for solid results. However, several on-track incidents marred their partnership. In Baku, Ocon squeezed Perez into the wall while both were in the top five. At Spa-Francorchamps, Perez twice forced Ocon toward the inside wall on the run from La Source to Eau Rouge. After one such clash, an frustrated Ocon remarked to media: "I don't know if he wants to die or something. Today, we lost a lot of points. We took a lot of risk. We risk our lives for nothing and no reason."
The drama continued into 2018 with a start-line collision at the Singapore Grand Prix that sent Ocon into the barriers, with the team blaming Perez.
Looking back, Ocon acknowledges his role. "I started clearly on the back foot in the first race [of 2017]," he explained. "But then I managed to catch up well after that. And then we were racing very closely. And there were moments where I did mistakes... I was very young. I was inexperienced. I wanted to push hard and show people what I was capable of."
Despite the tensions, their aggressive racing helped Force India secure fourth in the constructors' championship with 103 points after the Belgian Grand Prix, maintaining that position through the season's end. The team briefly enforced orders to curb the clashes.
"We finished with a very good championship finish position for the team," Ocon added. "With fourth place. A top 10 finish in my first full season. So, yeah, it was very solid for sure."
The incidents were particularly costly given Force India's financial struggles, which culminated in a mid-2018 takeover by a Lawrence Stroll-led consortium, rebranding the team as Aston Martin today. Ocon regrets moments like Spa, emphasizing learning from errors and his ongoing respect for Perez: "That's the way I saw racing back then... but things could have happened in a different way."
