Esteban Ocon met with the FIA to discuss the penalty he received in the Bahrain Grand Prix for failing to line up in his starting position correctly.
The Alpine driver received a five-second time penalty for being illegally outside of his grid slot before the start of the race.Ocon admitted being at fault, but said the difficulty of seeing the grid lines from the cockpit contributed to his mistake.
“Unfortunately, you can’t see very well in these cars,” Ocon explained. “Especially not when you’re on the grid like that. You can see the yellow line as a reference. But that’s up to me to fix that.”
He was originally under the impression that his car had been too far forward on the grid and accused four of his rivals of committing the same infraction. However, the Alpine driver later came to realise he had been too far to the right of his grid slot before the lights had gone out – a new rule which came into force at that race.
Ocon said he had spoken with the FIA in order to clarify the reason for the penalty and was happy he now understood his obligations under the rules.
“I had the meeting with the FIA, just to understand what exactly happened, and it’s clear now and we move forward,” he said.
“It was too much to the right, basically. So that’s where it could get confusing, because it was too much to the right and over the line.”
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The penalty was the first in a series of setbacks for Ocon during the race. After incurring front wing damage, he pitted to serve his five-second penalty but his crew touched the car before the time had elapsed.
Ocon was therefore handed a further 10-second penalty from the stewards. He then earned a third penalty for speeding on his way out of the pit lane. He and his team had amassed a total of 20 seconds of penalties before Alpine brought him in to retire after 41 laps.
“We admit our mistakes,” Ocon said. “In Bahrain, we clearly got it wrong.
“There’s a saying that when it rains, it pours. So that’s what happened to us in Bahrain. Collectively, we are usually very good on operational things like that. And this time, we were not.”
Ocon is more optimistic about Alpine’s potential performance in Jeddah compared to Bahrain after showing strong pace here last season.
“[Bahrain]’s definitely not our best circuit as a whole. Last year was a pretty similar thing. We got P9 in qualifying – but we qualified fifth here.
“We’ve been recently very strong out on this track. And it’s a track that I’ve been enjoying racing at. So hopefully we can repeat the same, be competitive and have a good race weekend.”
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2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix
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bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
17th March 2023, 8:43
I didn’t realise that being laterally outside the box was a new thing for Bahrain, I just assumed the box was the box.
I assume he’s the tallest on the grid, the FIA should just say if ‘Yuki can see it, you should be able to’.
AlanD
17th March 2023, 14:04
Bernasaurus, I don’t think the height of the driver necessarily reflects how high he sits in the car. I imagine they try to position the drivers at the same height because those side impact head protectors on the cockpit need to be at the right height alongside the helmet, the seat belt harnesses would have to be at the right height compared to the shoulders, and the drivers head affects the airflow into the air box. Does anyone remember Ferrari, I think, pioneered a helmet design for Schuey with a couple of vanes on it, just to better funnel air into the enfine? Anyone? Or have I imagined that? Anyway, I think they position the head first and then move the pedals to fit the height of the driver. but if you know different, please do say so.
Alesici
17th March 2023, 8:54
Can anyone confidently tell me how wide the grid box is that they have to fit the 2m wide car into? I’d appreciate it.
Jere (@jerejj)
17th March 2023, 9:09
@Alesici I couldn’t find what I was directly looking for by Googling, but certainly wider than car width, so perhaps 2.5 to 3m.
BasCB (@bascb)
17th March 2023, 12:02
From the visuals, I would say it’s only a little wider than an F1 car. I think the upper limit of 3m @jerejj mentions is a bit generous, it seems like they have some 10-20 cm on each side of the car left when they are on the grid, so it would be close to about 2,5m? – see this picture of a relatively recent starting grid.
gDog
17th March 2023, 12:43
Looks to be about a front tyre’s width on that grid
AlanD
17th March 2023, 13:55
Bas, very useful picture. Puts it into context. I’m thinking that I could probably park my car in a slot with that much width to play with (relative to domestic car sizes of course). I’m thinking sometimes I go to the supermarket where the bays don’t have a lot of leeway and people park off centre in adjoining bays. I can squeeze into those. Can’t open the car door, but the box is wide enough. Given that these drivers are able to position their inner wheels with millimeter precision when driving round corners, I’d guess a tyre width in the pit box is easy for them. They also start off the parade lap with the car in the box so they’ve got plenty of opportunity to get sighter marks to line up on.
mrfill (@mrfill)
17th March 2023, 20:50
It is not the bays in the supermarket that don’t have a lot of leeway, it is the cars that have been designed to be totally unsuitable to be parked in normal sized parking places.
Jere (@jerejj)
17th March 2023, 9:12
@bernasaurus
Yes, a new rule generally & he’s the joint-second tallest with Albon (both 186 cm tall) from what I know.
FIA indeed should point out the matter that way.
Jere (@jerejj)
17th March 2023, 9:13
I don’t know how my post got separated from reply.
kcrossle (@kcrossle)
18th March 2023, 2:43
Just a side coomment regarding metric / English measures. The world (mostly USA) needs to adopt a common measurement system. The thing is, even though you wish it, 186cm means nothing if you’ve only lived with ft&in. It’s 6’1.25in. Which is instantly relateable to one living in the old scheme.
It’s a challenge to adapt. I bake bread in metric, but in so many things have to translate
BasCB (@bascb)
17th March 2023, 11:53
Indeed, Esteban, quite right.