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A rising star’s mixed Formula Renault 3.5 cameo

“IT WAS A FRUSTRATING EVENT, I FELT OCON WANTED TO BE FASTEST IN EVERY SESSION”

When future Formula 1 racer Esteban Ocon landed at Comtec Racing for a two-round cameo in the

2014 Formula Renault 3.5 championship, he was riding the crest of a wave. With a commanding 77-point buffer over Max Verstappen in the FIA European F3 championship and only two rounds remaining, the opportunity to sample more powerful and complicated machinery couldn’t have come at a better time.

His appearances at the Hungaroring and Paul Ricard showed all the hallmarks of the devastating speed and technical sensitivity he would go on to display in F1 but, as his race engineer Danny King recalls,

Ocon was preoccupied with showing more experienced contemporaries including Carlos Sainz Jr and Pierre Gasly the way.

“It was a frustrating event,” reflects

King. “I felt that he wanted to be the fastest in every session, which you can understand coming from F3, having pretty much won the championship already.”

Hampered by red flags in qualifying for race one, Ocon lined up sixth – King reckoned fourth was achievable if he’d completed his final flier – but fluffed his start and could only recover to ninth.

“To get the thing off the line with anti-stall and a launch control system that was a bit unreliable was difficult,” says King. “Ninth was OK, but there was more potential there.”

Qualifying for race two took place on a damp but drying track, which caught Ocon out at the Turn 11 right-hander. The damage was significant, and Comtec ran out of time before the race to make repairs.

“A missed opportunity,” King adds.

“He was super good at working out where the grip was, he could have been in the top three.”

As Ocon had not tested before his debut, King was optimistic that his charge would take a step forward at Paul Ricard, but Ocon did not figure near the front at all. He finished outside the top 10 on both occasions, forgetting to keep the DRS system open through Signes and frequently using the wrong gear exiting the chicane.

Nonetheless, King reckons the experience was useful for Ocon and helped him realise areas he needed to work on before making an F1 race debut with Manor two years later.

“Upping the level of the complexity of the car was a good thing for him and would have given him more tools in his toolkit,” King says. “Le Castellet [Paul Ricard] wasn’t our finest hour, but I think he learned a lot.”