Ocon laments brake issue after Force India falters in Q1

Esteban Ocon (FRA) Sahara Force India F1 VJM11.

Force India's stormy weekend hit a low point on Saturday afternoon when neither Esteban Ocon nor Sergio Perez were able to avoid elimination at the end of the first round of qualifying.

Ocon will start Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix from 18th place on the grid, with Perez lining up in 19th.

“It’s disappointing to be out in Q1," signed Ocon. "But we had an issue with the brakes that held us back.

"I pitted for slicks when the track was improving and my brake pedal went long.

"We tried to optimise the situation as much as we could, cooling down the brakes, but that meant I couldn’t drive the car at 100 per cent.

"Given all that happened, though, I am happy not to be last on the grid. We can come back tomorrow and we will push hard to make it back into the points."

Perez didn't have any technical issues, but was instead caught out by the fluctuating conditions during the session.

"We were expecting more rain towards the end of Q1," he explained. "So we went out early to set our times and took the best out of the tyres.

"This really hurt us because the track was improving massively towards the end of Q1 and we didn’t complete our best lap when the track was at its best.

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"Sometimes this happens when the weather is changing quickly, but we definitely had much more potential today.

"For tomorrow I think it’s a big challenge to recover if we have a normal race, but you never know what can happen and we never give up."

"A very tricky qualifying session which didn’t really go to plan," added the team's chief operating officer Otmar Szafnauer.

"A brake problem held back Esteban and seriously compromised his qualifying session, especially towards the end when the track was improving.

"Checo didn’t set his times when the track was at its best and that’s why he dropped out in Q1 as well.

"It’s one we will need to learn from and hope we can recover tomorrow to come away with some points."

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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.