Ocon hopes Abu Dhabi test will help fix Alpine issues

Estaban Ocon is hoping that today's test session in Abu Dhabi will have helped Alpine pin down what went wrong with their tyre management in Sunday's Grand Prix at the same venue.

Ocon started and finished the race in 12th place, putting him outside the points. His team mate Pierre Gasly began the race in tenth on a two-stopper and fared even worse, finishing just behind Ocon in 13th after an early clash with Lewis Hamilton.

It's a particular disappointment after both drivers finished the Las Vegas GP in the top ten, but illustrative of how the squad had found it difficult to sustain consistency from week to week.

Ocon is hoping that the opportunity to get right back out on track at Yas Marina for a full day of testing will allow them to run comparison tests with their weekend performance that might help them work out what the issue is.

"If it was a weekend like Las Vegas it would not be worth very much for us, because we were competitive," Ocon explained. "But on a track where we struggled, there is a lot for us to understand.

• Read also: Gasly says Abu Dhabi GP was ‘damage limitation’ after Hamilton run-in

"If we can pick up something before next year about why that was, then it's going to be a good thing," he continued. "That's why the test is super important.

"Looking at how we struggled this weekend, it's going to be a very important test for us, so I'm looking forward to see what we can extract out of that."

Ocon said he was particularly happy that the test would continue into the early evening when the sun set and the floodlights started coming on, replicating the conditions he experienced in qualifying and the start of the race.

"What's most important is to understand what has been happening this season, [where there's been] quite a lot of up and down in terms of performance, in terms of pace," he explained.

"The consistency is what we need to get better, clearly," he said. "So good opportunities that we took - as Monaco, as Las Vegas and stuff like that - but quite a lot we didn't, like Singapore and Austin.

"If you take these two, we probably could have been in the top ten in the championship in the drivers' championship," he pointed out. "It's worth what it's worth, but clearly it means that we didn't maximise the season.

"It's going to be important to fix all of those things for next year, and start [the new season] and be on top of them."

Another problem Ocon faced at the weekend was feeling poorly. He was allowed to skip media duties on Thursday and sat out the first practice session in favour of reserve driver Jack Doohan, but admitted that he was still feeling less that 100 per cent on Sunday.

"It's going in the right curve," he said after reporting further improvement on Monday. "Really the biggest challenge is always a test, the whole day in the car, when you don't feel great.

"I'm glad that I'm starting to feel better, because it would be quite a tough one otherwise [today]."

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