Abiteboul: "He has to be pragmatic"

Ocon currently has 36 World Championship points; Ricciardo has more than double that number with 78. With that they are respectively 12th and 4th in the standings in the World Championship.

However, according to RaceFans, Abiteboul is seeing progress with Ocon, especially in the last few races. However, due to two DNFs, this is not reflected in the results.

"He needs to continue with what he has done in the last few races. Unfortunately it hasn't paid off in the results yet, but that wasn't his fault," Abiteboul said.

"Since Monza - and Monza was tough - he has made a kind of restart, also with the way we all work together. There has been a lot of discussion and a lot of hard work by the very experienced engineer Mark Slade, who has guided him."

Abiteboul is realistic about the points difference between Ricciardo and Ocon, but he's not too worried about it.

"He has to be pragmatic about the situation and that's not a bad thing. Without his downtime, he would probably still be a long way behind Ricciardo. But Ricciardo is a very strong teammate, and I am convinced that the things he has to work on will work out well, especially with the support of the team."