Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race Results

Combining F1 and DTM will be hard - Ocon

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Esteban Ocon admits it is going to be "a great challenge" to combine F1 with a season racing in DTM this year.

The Frenchman has been named as Pascal Wehrlein's replacement in Mercedes' DTM line-up after Wehrlein was promoted to a race seat with Manor. However, Ocon has already been confirmed as Renault's reserve driver following the team's return as an F1 constructor, and he is expecting a testing season trying to juggle both categories.

"This is a full year and a great challenge, I'll have a lot to learn," Ocon is quoted as saying by Speedweek. "It is not easy to combine DTM with F1. That's going to be hard. But I'm here to tackle exactly that.

"As a young driver, it is always the goal to get into F1, and that's certainly my goal for the future. But at the moment I am very happy to be in the DTM. It is a fantastic opportunity for me and I want to drive a lot in the series."

Renault Sport Racing managing director Cyril Abiteboul has previously said it is likely Ocon will take part in a number of Friday practice sessions for the team this season.

Jolyon Palmer and Kevin Magnussen were confirmed as Renault's race drivers at the start of February, with Pastor Maldonado leaving the team.

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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.