Ocon revels in 'amazing' first Mercedes experience

Esteban Ocon described his first day of testing for Mercedes as "amazing" as the Frenchman set the second fastest time on Tuesday.

Having originally been scheduled to drive for Mercedes during the Barcelona test, Ocon had to wait until Silverstone after the team drafted in Pascal Wehrlein to finish its test schedule. On his first day in the car on Tuesday, Ocon was second quickest in the dry morning session and also completed a number of laps in the wet as he got to grips with the W07.

"Amazing," Ocon said when asked about his first impressions of the car. "It was great to have the opportunity. Tricky conditions this afternoon though, some points it was drying and we were expecting slicks and then it went to inters… but we kept working on the car, making the most of how the track was. That was important to keep working in all of the conditions."

Ocon felt he got up to speed quickly which allowed him to provide better feedback to the Mercedes engineers during the morning session.

"Took me a few runs, obviously it is still new to drive an F1 car at Silverstone with all the fast corners, it takes a bit of time. I had a few sets of medium tyres so by the end I think I was quite close to the limit which was a nice feeling.

"You need to get close to the pace to start working well. It didn’t take a lot of time to adapt which was nice."

And asked if he had received any feedback from Mercedes, Ocon replied: "They were really happy with what I have done. So if they are happy I am happy."

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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.