Autosportfoto

Manor: Ocon has huge potential

Manor racing director Dave Ryan is convinced Esteban Ocon has 'huge potential' to achieve success in F1 and has praised the young French driver for his attitude and application since stepping up into the full-time role midway through the campaign.

Ocon replaced Rio Haryanto in the Manor driver line-up from the Belgian Grand Prix after the Indonesian driver failed to deliver sufficient sponsorship funding for the second half of the season.

In the opening five races of his F1 career the 20-year-old has seen the chequered flag in ever race, despite suffering mechanical difficulties in free practice and qualifying sessions, with a joint-best result of 16th place at Spa-Francorchamps and Sepang.

Ryan has been impressed by the French driver's adaption to becoming a full-time F1 driver and despite results not matching the team's hopes he has full confidence in Ocon for the final four races of the year.

"To arrive part-way through the season into a team that has been developing along with Pascal [Wehrlein] is a big ask," Ryan said in Malaysia. "We haven't helped the situation because he hasn't had the best of reliability up until now.

"But the kid's fantastic. He's got a fantastic attitude, he's got huge potential and together with him and Pascal it's a great driving line-up."

Ocon is expected to complete the campaign with Manor and has been strongly linked with a 2017 drive at Renault alongside Nico Hulkenberg as the French manufacturer looks for a young and homegrown talent to work alongside the experienced German. 

Zdroj: crash.net