Esteban Ocon sees Deadpool help in F1: 'Happens every time'

The new Marvel film was released just prior to the Belgian Grand Prix. Ocon makes no secret of the fact that he is a big Marvel fan. There drivers were in red overalls and had special helmet designs in honour of the film. Esteban Ocon had a Deadpool-themed helmet, and Pierre Gasly had a helmet inspired by Wolverine.

Alpine have close ties with Deadpool actor Ryan Reynolds who was part of an investor group taking a 24% equity stake in the company. The team also had a Deadpool theme at the 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix, where Ocon finished fourth.

What was key to the good result in Belgium?

Speaking to the press, which included GPblog, after the race in Belgium, Ocon was asked what was key to his positive result? "Every time I wear a Deadpool helmet in the race, I get a decent result. Obviously, today is not P4 like Las Vegas last year. We still take it. It's still a positive race," Ocon said with a smile on his face.

But it turns out there was more to it. "The car performance has been very decent. This race we were able to fight cars and to progress throughout the race," Ocon added before being cautious about getting overly optimistic. 

"We need to be careful about reading into this race too much. If you look at the historical results, 2020 fourth and fifth, 2021 we finished with both cars in the points easily. 2022 I started last and finished sixth. Every year, we have decent car performance. So it would be good that we could carry that performance forward, but I expect that it's going to be a little bit more difficult on the following ones. I hope I'm lying, but to me, this is what it seems," Ocon concluded.