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Esteban Ocon was talked about quite a lot after the 2023 F1 Austrian GP. This was mainly because the French driver was penalized four times for track limit infringements at the Red Bull Ring.
However, all four of them were handed to him a few hours after the race. Hence, his race engineer commended him for not getting any warning or penalty for going off the track right after the race.
In a team radio video, we can hear Esteban Ocon's race engineer informing us about his result and how he did not pick up any penalties for track limits, while other drivers around him did. He said:
"Finished P12, not the result we wanted but, well done anyway. It was a very mixed race with an awful lot of penalties for track limits up and down the field."
Ocon said:
"Yeah, not to us, we didn't get one, so..."
The Race engineer replied:
"No no we didn't. Yeah, well done to you for managing that well."
However, Aston Martin submitted a protest to the stewards and the FIA to review the race once more for track limits. This resulted in a spree of penalties that were given to eight drivers a few hours after the race, including Lewis Hamilton, Nyck de Vries, Yuki Tsunoda, Carlos Sainz, Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon, Logan Sargeant, and, of course, Esteban Ocon.
Esteban Ocon was handed four time penalties, two of which were for 10 seconds and the other two for five seconds, totaling up to 30 seconds. With this, he even broke the record for most time penalties given to a driver in a single race. Hence, his race result was changed from P12 to P14.
Esteban Ocon believes he can fight with Max Verstappen for the championship in the same car
Though Esteban Ocon is miles away from competing for a world championship, let alone winning one, he claims that he can fight with Max Verstappen for it if both are in the same car. Speaking with DAZN, Ocon said:
"Sure. I see myself fighting with Verstappen fighting for a World Cup if we had the same car. Now Max is doing an incredible job, he is dominating with Red Bull. But I don't care who the driver was. I want to fight for the championship. I've always believed in myself. We have a long road ahead of us, but my goal is to be a world champion, nothing more."
Of course, every F1 driver's dream is to win the world championship one day, and Esteban Ocon is no different. However, even he understands that he and any other driver would need a perfect car to have a chance to realize their dreams.
