Esteban Ocon raves about his first few weeks at Haas and is thrilled with the family atmosphere – a little dig at his ex-employer
Esteban Ocon feels right at home in his new team, Haas, and can’t resist a dig at his ex-employer Alpine. The Frenchman left the team prematurely at the end of 2024 to join his new employer and be able to complete the test drives in Abu Dhabi.
It was a big change for him – but also one that the team made pretty easy for him, as he says. Because at Haas, they immediately responded to his wishes and needs and implemented them as quickly as possible.
“So far it’s been really good and we’ve worked well together,” says Ocon in the run-up to the big Formula One presentation on Tuesday. ”The environment is really like a big family. Everyone is highly motivated and wants to improve.”
What particularly impressed Ocon was how the team responded to the necessary changes. The Frenchman is even taller than his predecessors Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hülkenberg and needed adjustments to his seat position, accelerator pedal and steering wheel. “And that was done really quickly, I was super impressed,” he emphasizes.
Completely new steering wheel in 1.5 months
Because to feel at home in the cockpit, Ocon asked his team to change the steering wheel from one to two clutch levers. “A complete redesign was necessary for this because it’s a big change,” he says.
“But it went perfectly, just as we wanted,“ he says, praising his ex-employers: ‘I’m not used to that. Elsewhere, it would have taken eight or ten months, but they did it in a month and a half.’
”It’s really nice to see that everyone is behind us and that the team really listens,” he enthuses.
He says that the changes made him feel very comfortable in the cockpit during a day of filming with the new car last weekend. “And now we’ll wait and see what the car can really do,” says Ocon. “In the simulator, it was a significant step towards 2024, but of course everyone will improve.”
Good teamwork with Bearman
He himself is the experienced leader on the side of rookie Oliver Bearman in the team and is supposed to get the team on the right track. “For now, I’m just doing my job as best I can and trying to give the team as much information as possible. With my experience, I’m able to guide them in many technical areas,” he says.
But he also wants to work together with his new teammate in the best possible way to help the team move forward. So far, that seems to be going quite well. Ocon has already given Bearman a few things to work with after the first test, which Bearman can validate next time. “So far it’s been fun,” says Ocon.
“The team also wants to give us both exactly the same opportunities. On film day, I was allowed to go first because Oli, for example, had already finished his seat and had fewer things to validate,“ said the Frenchman. ‘But he will get the exact same chance because he will be driving in Bahrain.’
”We all discussed it and understood each other’s arguments. And it’s really cool to have such open discussions.”
