Why Ocon retains the approach forced on him by his “crazy journey”

Sitting in front of a monitor, Esteban Ocon stares intently ahead. On screen is something video game-like, and Ocon is in the process of zapping enemy vessels while trying to protect his own starship in the middle of the screen. The catch is – he’s only using his eyes.

The monitor is tracking his pupils – and everything that catches his gaze explodes in an instant. And there’s a twist: while Ocon must destroy the white enemy objects, he mustn’t attack the red ones, since they’re ‘friendlies’ and he’ll incur a penalty if they don’t make it to the starship.

This isn’t a new shooter in the Star Wars gaming franchise, it’s a training aid developed by Xavier Feuillée,
a performance coach the Frenchman has worked with since 2014, and it’s just one of tens of tools being used
to hone Ocon’s reaction time and awareness.

“It helps you to detect things quicker,” Ocon tells GP Racing, getting out of the seat after coming close to setting his personal best score. “Like, if somebody spins in lap one, your reaction time is a lot quicker, and ultimately these moments can define your weekend. It’s all the little things that make a difference – and which you may not think about when you’re watching Formula 1 from the outside. But that’s the big hidden iceberg below.”

As we’re invited to swap in for Ocon as the starship’s ‘guardians’, he takes up the seat to the left – and, putting his arms on the table, it’s as if he falls asleep. But no, it’s just the next exercise – in which, with sensors gauging his heartbeat and other parameters, he needs to reach a maximum level of relaxation in the shortest possible period of time.

It’s a typical morning for Ocon – this time a bit
warped by GP Racing’s presence – at the 321 Perform
Centre in Annecy, where we catch up with him ahead of the season. His daily routine usually begins with reaction and coordination training and other mental exercises. Then,
after lunch, it’s time for the physical part.

Our man Karpov tries out the new training aid developed by Xavier Feuillée as Ocon moves onto the next exercise

Photo by: Malcolm Griffiths

Having worked in the Pyrenees until a couple of years ago, Feuillée relocated to the compact French town close to the Swiss border and opened a new base in a 14th-century castle in the area, just an hour’s drive away from Ocon’s residence. From mid-December until pre-season testing – with a small gap for Christmas with the family in Normandy – this is effectively the Alpine driver’s office, and one of the reasons
he spends the winter in Europe rather than, say, the Maldives or Dubai. He also comes here after almost every grand prix for tests and recovery procedures.

“Yeah, I could go to Dubai or the Maldives, too,” he nods when it’s put to him that this is hardly the stereotypical
image of an F1 driver’s off-season.

“You can find a gym almost everywhere but I’m not the type of guy who’d go for a long holiday somewhere far away. And there are no specific tools like these anywhere else.”

Home is where the art is

There is no shortage, after all, of travelling in Esteban’s life – and this dates all the way back to karting. It’s a well-known story, but no less astonishing because of that. With his parents, the dog and all the equipment required to service a go-kart, Ocon travelled across Europe in his early teens, 95,000km across three years.

"I was calling [Toto Wolff] almost every day saying, ‘If you don’t take me now, it’s finished.’ And I was going to work with my dad in the garage"
Esteban Ocon

His family sold their house to fund a racing career and literally lived on the road, travelling between racetracks in a van with an attached trailer. So it makes sense that he’s not too keen to leave home now when he doesn’t have to.

“We changed two gearboxes during that time,” he smiles, recalling those ‘crazy’ years. And he isn’t talking about kart gearboxes. “I think we changed three sets of tyres on the caravan – because we were carrying all the karting equipment with us, the wear was so bad…

“A funny story: we got stopped by the police once and they weighed the caravan and the van – and said, ‘We have a problem here. You are two and a half tonnes too heavy.’ They wanted to give us a huge fine, so we tried to explain that this is our life, this is what we’re trying to do. And
they understood and let us go.

Ocon is a regular visitor to the imposing 321 Perform
centre in Annecy where GP Racing met up with him

Photo by: Malcolm Griffiths

“That was, yeah… a bit on the extreme side. But my
dad was so sure I had something that there was no way
it could go unnoticed.”

This family affair – Ocon racing, his dad acting as his mechanic, his mother taking care of pretty much everything else – could easily have come to nothing. Even though he was picked up in karting by Gravity Management, run by eventual F1 team boss Eric Boullier and now-Mercedes F1 junior programme chief Gwen Lagrue, at the age of 18 Ocon's career nearly stalled when that company hit financial strife.

Remarkably, this was immediately after the European Formula 3 season in which Ocon’s rivals included Max Verstappen. While the Dutchman went straight into preparing for
his F1 debut with Toro Rosso after finishing third in the standings, Ocon, who won the title, was gearing up to help
his father with his work as a car mechanic in the small Normandy town of Evreux. But at the same time he was haranguing Toto Wolff’s phone line, trying to convince the Mercedes motorsport boss to save his racing career – and ultimately he succeeded.

“I don’t remember for how long exactly I was calling and texting him,” Esteban laughs. “Even if it was two weeks, it felt more like a month, because I had no other options. I was calling almost every day saying, ‘If you don’t take me now, it’s finished.’ And I was going to work with my dad in the garage. He found a solution in the end, with Fréd Vasseur, for me to race with ART in GP3. But it was very close.”

So if there happens to be a shortage of decent car mechanics in Evreux these days, that’s on Wolff and Vasseur.

“I wouldn’t be lost,” says Ocon. “I used to work with my dad on cars together, and we still do. Of course, I prefer to drive the cars than to put my hands into them. But yes, I’ve got a good knowledge. My dad is probably the best mechanic I know. And I’m not saying that because I’m biased, that’s the truth. I’m nowhere near as good, but I’m not too bad either.”

Ocon beat Verstappen to the 2014 European F3 championship on his rise through the ranks, but his career almost hit the buffers

Photo by: Motorsport Images

The Ocon you don’t see

He’s a rare breed. Car mechanics’ sons don’t often make it to F4 and F3, let alone F1. And that’s probably why Esteban Ocon is one of the most humble guys on the current grid. He’s still got the smile of a 12-year old, he’s friendly and polite, especially with the media. Watch his TV interviews – he’ll try to find something positive to say even after the most difficult race.

But ask his team-mates, and they’ll tell you that behind closed doors you will find a very different Ocon – frank and blunt when he wants to get his point across. Rival teams’ sporting directors, when they’re summoned to the stewards over an incident involving Ocon, know he’ll make no concessions, brook no compromises if he thinks he’s in the right. Those who’ve had to deal with Ocon in situations like these can attest – his glare can pierce more than just those enemy vessels on Xavier Feuillée’s screen.

Presented with that viewpoint, as we move from one training machine to the other, Ocon takes a couple of seconds to think but agrees: “Yeah, I think it’s a fair assessment. And that’s why maybe not everyone will like me, at first.

"I had to be tough when it mattered, and I had to be heard when people weren’t necessarily listening, or weren’t convinced"
Esteban Ocon

“But when there’s something that has to be said, especially in Formula 1, it has to be said. We have no time to waste here. So, it’s important to be straightforward.

“Maybe I’m too straightforward at times, but well… I’m not going to let anything go after I’ve worked so hard to get where I am. You see how many hours I put in every day here – and I don’t want to get eaten alive by anyone, be it some team manager, team principal, or a world champion.”

This is also probably a habit from those years when Ocon, as a teenager, had to deal with not just any but those specific adults who held his career in the palms of their hands.

“I had the weight of my family on my shoulders from a very young age,” he continues. “And I’m not saying it to seek pity: it was worth trying and we succeeded to end up where we wanted to be – and now everything is good. But it’s clear that I had to deal with these sorts of pressures, I had to be tough when it mattered, and I had to be heard when people weren’t necessarily listening, or weren’t convinced. And, you know, to make these businessmen, investors listen to you, when you’re 13 or 14, and really pay attention, isn’t easy.”

You may recognise the uncompromising side of Esteban in his on-track battles, too. Remember that message from Fernando Alonso after their lap-one battle in Hungary in 2022? “Never in my life have I seen a defence like Esteban’s today. Never.” From time to time you’ll hear other drivers bemoan his ‘elbows out’ racing style.

Ocon has built a reputation as an uncompromising F1 racer, with Alonso's complaints at the Hungaroring in 2022 a testament to his philosophy in battle

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Ocon’s former boss, Otmar Szafnauer, suggested that the media refer to Esteban as a “defence minister in French”, citing the way Ocon held off Lewis Hamilton on his way to P4 in the wet race at Suzuka in 2022.

“Ministre de la défense,” he helps us with translation. “Well, I take it. Some people like the way I race, some people don’t. But if I can defend for many laps, especially if there’s a quicker car behind, that I’m quite happy with.

“That’s something I’ve always liked. A good wheel-to-wheel battle, a tough one... Not, you know, being side by side but
with half of the track width in between – this to me is not racing – but really wheel-to-wheel, a bit of touching. And
yeah, if some people are annoyed when it’s difficult to pass
me, I think I’m fine with that.”

Momentum shift

He’s come a long way. Certainly a lot further than you might have assumed if you just looked at where he’d come from.
And yet it’s also undeniable that Ocon’s career has lost a
bit of momentum. He is not that young anymore, and there are other talents the F1 world is getting excited about – whether it be Oscar Piastri or the hotly touted Mercedes protégé Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

But there’s plenty to be proud of, too. Some remarkable performances in his Force India stint, then a return to the championship after a year off having lost his seat for well-documented non-performance reasons. Shrugging off a difficult year against Daniel Ricciardo at Renault to secure a three-year extension with a works team, then outscoring Alonso over their two years together – even if, as Alonso liked to point out, car number 14 suffered the majority of the mechanicals. Ultimately it’s not bad when a two-time world champion is having to reach for reasons for being behind you in your intra-team battle.

There’s also the fact that Ocon lives in a beautiful part of the world, trains in a place with postcard views, and doesn’t have to worry about what’s in his bank account. Nevertheless, there’s a lot more hype surrounding the new up-and-coming guys.

“It’s crazy how time flies,” he says as we jump into Ocon’s corporate A110S on his way home. “But yes, I’m not young anymore. Obviously I’d love to take the next step now. I’ve been racing in the midfield all this time, fighting for points. But I want to be fighting for podiums, for wins. And, at the moment, we’re not able to do that – so it’s hard to swallow.”

Ocon recognises that his career has lost a bit of momentum, with Alpine struggling towards the rear of the field

Photo by: Malcolm Griffiths

It looks as if he has another challenging year ahead of him now. The team, restructuring once again, looks hardly likely to give him a car capable of winning any time soon.

“I had exactly this conversation with Antoine Dupont, the rugby player, the other day,” Ocon says. “And he said, ‘it’s so hard to take, that it doesn’t depend on you alone’ – and that’s true for any team sport. But Formula 1 is probably the only sport in the world where, even if you’re the best, but you don’t have the right tool, you just can’t outperform that.

“But I always believed that if you start thinking about F1 like that, then you’re not going to move forward. You’re just going to be constantly depressed. There are only 20 drivers in F1 and I’m enjoying every lap I do. And I keep believing that if I keep working the way I’m working now, good things will happen. Otherwise there’s no point in keeping going.”

"I have no regrets. I need to make sure I’m on top of my game for the day when I’ll have the car that I need"
Esteban Ocon

He’s at the stage of his career where he probably needs some luck for really good things to happen. For Ocon to get a championship-level car in his hands, he’d need something akin to what happened to Jenson Button in 2009.

In fact, you could make a good case that Ocon right now is a bit like Button in 2008. A bit over a hundred F1 starts, a handful of podiums, a single left-field win in Hungary. If Honda hadn’t sold Ross Brawn its F1 team in that famous one-pound transaction, we’d probably be referring to Button now as “a good driver, but not champion material”. But we don’t. And if stories like this happened often, Keanu Reeves wouldn’t be making documentaries about them.

A tale of two dreams

Despite his association with Mercedes, Ocon hasn’t been offered a seat in the works team – at least not yet. Does he feel the timing was never quite right? Was he simply too young when Nico Rosberg vacated his seat? And was Valtteri Bottas too good a team player?

“I can’t remake the past,” Ocon says. “I’d just done half a season with Manor when the Nico thing happened… It’s hard to say. At some other points I had opportunities to take a different path, but things didn’t come that way. I have no regrets. I need to make sure I’m on top of my game for the day when I’ll have the car that I need.”

Ocon says he doesn't regret how anything played out in his career

Photo by: Malcolm Griffiths

Any F1 driver, regardless of age, accomplishments and reputation, will insist the dream is to become world champion. Ocon is no different. But he’s always said he has two dreams. The one about the title, yes, but also the one about making it so that his parents never want for anything.

“They gave everything they
had – their energy, their home –
and more to help me and
completely sacrificed their life
to make mine better,” he says.
“And I’m very proud and happy to be able to give the ball
back and help them have an easier life and make them experience things they were never able to experience.
And it’s a great feeling, that.”

That second dream is achieved now. 18 months ago Ocon finally convinced his father to close his garage to outside clients – now the only cars he services are his son’s cars. But the first dream remains the most important to the family.

“My dad will always say that he’s happy, but he wants me to win,” smiles Ocon. “That’s the competitive spirit they’ve engraved in me. Until we get there, we’re not going to be completely happy. And it’s awesome, because nobody thought we were gonna make it this far. Yet we still made it.

“It was a crazy journey. And I think about that a lot more now than in my first stint in F1, when I was so focused on what I had to do, that I kind of forgot about all this, how lucky we are to be in that position. It’s something that year on the sidelines helped me to fully realise. But, as I say, we’re humans – and we’ll always want more. My dad says: when you start something, you must finish
it. That’s the way I was raised.”

And that’s probably just another reason why after almost every race he will keep coming back to his ally Feuillée, pushing to get better at everything – including the ability to vaporise spaceships with his eyes.

Even as Alpine's struggles on-track continue, Ocon continues to work hard away from it

Photo by: Malcolm Griffiths