Following the F1 Sprint on Saturday, it was a difficult day for the team - meaning Esteban would start the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola, from P16 on the grid.
In a wet start to the race, Esteban managed to gain positions during incidents in the opening laps, avoiding the trouble and keeping his nose clean through the treacherous conditons at Imola.
Esteban spent his race battling for the last points scoring position and found himself running in eleventh for most of the race.
His chances of finishing inside the top ten were then hampered, when he received a five-second time penalty for an unsafe release at his one and only pit-stop for Medium tyres.
Esteban crossed the line in P11, just on the back of another points paying position, before the penalty demoted him to P14 at the chequered flag.
Esteban Ocon, (Started P16, Finished P14):
“It was a frustrating race for us in the end where we’ve not scored any points. For me, it’s been a tricky one since the beginning and the Qualifying result compromised the rest of my weekend so if you think about it, where we ended up today before the penalty is not too bad. We lacked a bit of race pace and in the end we were not quick enough to get into the points even without the five second penalty. It’s a really tight pit-lane but we’ll be looking at exactly what happened in the debrief tonight to see if it could’ve been avoided. We’ll learn and move on from this one, and I’m already looking forward to Miami.”
The first ever Miami Grand Prix is next on the 2022 Season caldendar in two-weeks time on the 8-10 April.
