“Thank God nothing happened” in high-speed near-miss with Zhou, says Ocon

Esteban Ocon says he and Zhou Guanyu were fortunate to avoid a major crash when the two came close to colliding in the high-speed Maggotts-Becketts-Chapel sequence during qualifying.

The stewards examined the incident but ruled the Alfa Romeo driver had been unable to avoid getting in his rival’s way.

Ocon caught his rival as he tackled one of the quickest sequences on the track. “It was wet that bit,” he explained. “Zhou was on the left, I think, and I lost the rear of the car going through 11 there and they were just on the outside so it was quite on the limit.

“But thank God nothing happened.”

After speaking to both drivers the stewards accepted Zhou’s explanation he had been unable to get out of Ocon’s way because Lewis Hamilton’s car was in front of him. They decided against penalising the Alfa Romeo driver.

“Zhou was on an out lap during Q1 and was at the exit of turn 11 and driving slowly on the racing line and thereby impeded Ocon who was on a fast lap,” the stewards acknowledged.

“However, in the hearing Zhou explained that he had to go slow to avoid Hamilton in front of him and had to stay on the left side of the track because as he entered the turn he was passed on the right by Bottas and could not have moved off the line without causing an unsafe situation. This was confirmed by his in-car camera.

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

“Both drivers agreed that while Ocon was impeded there was not much that Zhou could have safely done in the conditions to avoid the incident and thus the Stewards take no further action.”

Ocon also encountered another of his rivals, Lance Stroll, at Vale, and went off the track trying to pass him. The Alpine driver said it was “obviously not the ideal start of the lap” but explained that it was another incident with a third driver which ultimately cost him a place in Q3.

“I made a mistake on that one, braked on the wet bit and went straight so that was a shame. But it’s not what prevented us from going into Q3,” said Ocon.

On his final flying lap in Q2, he lost more time behind Leclerc when he caught the Ferrari driver towards the end of the lap “The real issue was that Ferrari and Charles were on a two push-lap strategy,” Ocon explained. “We launched a lap just behind him – which would have been the case also if I didn’t try and overtake Lance at the end – so we were stuck for half of the lap.

“I lost half a second in that start of the lap. Charles eventually let me by the middle of the lap and from there on I was able to start gradually improving. But I missed Q3 by two tenths and a half or something, and we had clearly more than half a second in hand.

“So it’s difficult to swallow today that one, but we are quicker than what we’ve shown and we should be able to recover tomorrow.”

2023 British Grand Prix

• Norris is “growing” closer to the champion who inspired him to race
• Second supplier part failure ‘a frustrating issue we must solve’ – Alpine
• Albon ‘surprised’ to be quicker than Alonso at end of British GP
• Bottas admits Alfa Romeo ‘were expecting to be better than this’ in 2023
• McLaren now “finding performance quicker” after emulating Red Bull’s design

Browse all 2023 British Grand Prix articles