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Ocon: "I think Charles will fight for the title"

15:25, 18 Dec 2018

byBevan Youl

Esteban Ocon has said that it “won’t be a surprise to me” if Charles Leclerc was in contention for the Drivers Championship next season with Ferrari.

Lelclerc entered F1 in his rookie year this season with Sauber and impressed enough to be called up to Ferrari to replace Kimi Raikkonen. Many are backing him to potentially threaten his new teammate Sebastian Vettel too.

Ocon said “I think Charles will fight for the title next year for sure, at least it won’t be a surprise to me,” (RaceFans.net).

“I know him pretty well. The first race we raced together was in 2005 in mini-karts we were seven, eight years old. And we were first and second and I was on the inside and we crashed in the last corner of the last lap so he didn’t finish and I finished like sixth or seventh.”

“That was the first time we met and all our career we’ve been fighting like this together. I knew he had a very good talent from day one. He’s one of the quickest guys out there. I think he will show that next year, definitely.”

Pierre Gasly also earned himself a promotion to the Red Bull senior team and Ocon feels he and Leclerc will challenge each other greatly.

“I think you will see that Pierre and Charles are going to fight for wins and podiums,” he said.

“Probably the mentality of Formula 1 is going to change with that, seeing that young drivers can do the job too. That’s going to only help the younger ones coming in,” the Frenchman also said of teams in Formula 1 that don’t use younger drivers as much.

Ocon will be Mercedes reserve driver for the 2019 season, hoping for a chance at a seat for 2020.