F1 News
Ocon about time penalties: 'In Bahrain we clearly got it wrong'
- GPblog.com
Ocon has spoken to the FIA following the numerous time penalties the Frenchman received in the first race. In the press conference ahead of the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix, the driver put the blame on himself and acknowledged that he and the team made mistakes in the opening race.
In the Bahrain Grand Prix, Ocon received no less than three time penalties, something that had only happened once before in Formula 1. The race was overwhelmingly lost for Ocon, and his car was parked in the pit box before the end of the race. The penalties were all for procedural things: first, he was not on the track properly at the start, then the team did not serve the first time penalty properly, and the last came because Ocon was going too fast in the pit lane.
"We admit our mistakes. In Bahrain, we clearly got it wrong," Ocon acknowledged. "There's a saying: when it rains, it pours. That's what happened to us in Bahrain. We are usually very good on operational things like that. And this time, we were not. So, I had the meeting with the FIA, just to understand what exactly happened. And it's clear now and we move forward."
'I will have to do better myself'
The first penalty Ocon received was for being wrong on the track at the start. The Alpine driver explained that he was too far to the right, and not too far forward as is often the case with such an offence. Ocon explained that it is difficult to see the start box exactly from the car.
"Unfortunately, you can't see very well, in these cars, especially not when you're on the grid like that. You can see the yellow line as a reference. But yeah, that's up to me to fix that."