Esteban Ocon has defended his controversial overtake on Alexander Albon in the Dutch Grand Prix and criticised the Formula 1 rule that meant he was pegged back for the second start. The incident occurred on a slightly damp Zandvoort track as Max Verstappen crashed out and Gabriel Bortoleto spun 360 degrees on lap one.
In that moment, Esteban Ocon, running behind Albon, capitalised by re-accelerating faster at the end of the yellow-flag zone to grab 13th place, a move that infuriated the Williams driver. "I'm sorry, but what Esteban did is crazy," Albon ranted on the radio. "He's overtaking me in the middle of the crash."
Despite this, Ocon insisted he had done nothing wrong. "I overtook Alex, yeah, but I had the right, because it was green," the Frenchman said. However, the rules dictated that the grid for the second start was based on the classification at the end of lap one, nullifying his overtake and putting him back behind Albon.
"What was a big shame is that you have to take all these risks, you know?" Ocon lamented. "You're playing with either getting a penalty or not. I was not having a penalty, but it was very tight, because I just passed him when it was green. And then they put you back at the race start. It's been like that forever, but... Really, if that was 20 metres earlier, then I was having the place. But we still raced, like, for one-and-a-half sector. The red flag only came after Turn 5, you know? So, we passed sector one, and we were getting into sector two. So, I should have started in front of Alex – because that changed my race."
Ocon spent the first part of the race stuck behind Albon and pitted quite early, on lap 16, in a bid to find free air. He was 14th again when he retired on lap 53 due to a power unit issue. "After that, obviously, there's a lot of things that maybe we could have done differently, with strategy, etc," he admitted. "Fernando did a really, really good strategy, I don't think we could have done the same one without degradation. But there are things that we can look into to do a better job."
Ocon also criticised the rule, calling it outdated. "We are not going to believe that in Formula 1 we don't have timing loops every 20 metres, you know? It's a very old-school rule, really," he said. "I said it on the radio, let's not make Alex go in front again at the restart. Because that should not be the case. And for some reason I felt it, that they were going to put him in front again."
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