Esteban Ocon is set to revert to a 2022 pre-season routine that means “no life” and “war mode” ahead of next year’s F1 campaign.
Ocon and Alpine endured a disappointing season, with the team falling two places to sixth in the constructors’ championship compared to its position last season when they appeared to be on an upward trend.
Ocon’s total of 58 points was his second-lowest from his six seasons in F1, whilst Alpine’s plight was underlined by the fact it finished 160 points behind fifth-placed Aston Martin.
The French driver is now eager to replicate the build-up he endured in 2022, followed by full-on commitment to F1 which yielded 16 points-scoring finishes in 22 races that year, and his highest placing in the drivers’ standings of eighth.
After finishing quickest in the post-season test in Abu Dhabi recently, Ocon is currently on a short break through to December 17 when he will resume training before pausing for Christmas and New Year, and then “back fully into training camp” on January 2.
There will then be no let-up from the 27-year-old, who said: “I’m going to be more doing what I did in 2022 which is no life, flat-out, only racing.
“We’ve been doing a lot of different things and activations outside the track this year. That’s going to change. Next year it’s back to war mode, and fully focused on the racing side.”
The past season was overwhelmingly one of disappointment for Ocon, which saw highs of third in Monaco and fourth in Las Vegas but which was predominantly punctuated by too many lows, which included six retirements on his side of the garage.
“What is important for us is to understand what happened this season,” said Ocon. “There were quite a lot of ups and downs in terms of performance, in terms of pace.
“There were some very good things, some very good opportunities we took, but the consistency, overall, wasn’t there.
“We had too many DNFs. If you remove the gearbox issue we had in Singapore, the contact I had with Oscar (Piastri) in Austin, we would have been top 10 (in the drivers’ standings), and that’s why it (the season) is a wasted opportunity. We didn’t maximise it.
“The consistency is what we need to get better clearly. It’s going to be important to fix all of those things for next year, to start (next season) and be on top of it.”
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