Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsForce India

Ocon to get Force India test outing

Esteban Ocon will drive for Force India on the second day of in-season testing at the Circuit de Catalunya after a late driver change.

Pascal Wehrlein had been due to drive for Force India on Tuesday, with Nick Yelloly taking over on Wednesday. However, the team was forced to put Yelloly in the car on the opening day due to Wehrlein suffering from a fever, and with the young German driving for Mercedes on day two he will be unable to run in the VJM08 this week.

Force India has therefore turned to 18-year-old Ocon, who was previously development driver at Lotus. Ocon won last year's FIA European F3 championship - beating Toro Rosso's Max Verstappen to the title - and marked his debut GP3 race weekend with victory in Barcelona.

Ocon is another driver affiliated with Mercedes, with the team announcing it would be providing support to his career last week, and also revealing an option to sign him as a "fully fledged Mercedes-Benz driver in the future".

For live coverage of the opening day of testing, click here

Click here for Tuesday's gallery from testing at the Circuit de Catalunya

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.