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Esteban Ocon feels it will be up to the team to make sense of the tricky conditions throughout Friday at the 2023 F1 Australian GP.
Both free practice sessions were quite messy as the first session saw a GPS outage bring out the red flag. Not only that, the first session saw drivers struggle immensely with the low grip conditions of the track. Due to this, many drivers and teams were unable to get a proper read on the conditions.
The second free practice session was even worse as it saw disruptions from the rain 15 minutes into the session. While many teams tried different things, including Esteban Ocon running on intermediates to gain an understanding of conditions, the weather only changed for the worse. As a result, for a race weekend that is expected to be dry for the most part, there weren't many takeaways.
Looking back at the day, Ocon said:
"It’s always nice to be back driving in Melbourne although it’s fair to say that it was a tricky Friday for everyone today. After some decent laps on Hards, Free Practice 1 was interrupted by a GPS issue, which impacted the whole grid and made running on the Soft compound very tricky. We saw heavy traffic and the session was red flagged very quickly."
He added:
"Thereafter, the afternoon session saw us completing one good run before rain hit the track, making it impossible to run dry tyres ahead of what looks to be a dry Qualifying and Race. It will be up to us to use the limited learning from today and maximise it ahead of tomorrow and Sunday’s Grand Prix."
We're in a decent position: Esteban Ocon's teammate
Esteban Ocon's teammate Pierre Gasly was quite happy with the day as he felt that the team needed to be decisive with the setup for the rest of the weekend.
He said:
"It was not a smooth day in terms of being on-track due to the red flag in the first session and then the rain in the second session, so we definitely have a lot of work to do ahead of tomorrow and we will need to be decisive in the car set-up. I felt good in the car, and I think we're in a decent position ahead of the rest of the weekend."
Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly will be hoping to build on his tally and score points this weekend after a strong weekend in Jeddah.
