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Ocon encouraged by opening day for Manor

Esteban Ocon says he is close to being fully comfortable with the Manor after his first day driving for the team at the Belgian Grand Prix.

FP1 was Ocon's first run in the Manor after joining as a replacement for Rio Haryanto over the summer break. The Frenchman was faster than fellow Mercedes youngster Pascal Wehrlein in first practice but then almost a second slower than his team-mate in FP2, a gap he attributed to different run plans.

"I think I am quite close to it," Ocon replied when asked if he is comfortable in the car. "This morning I had good pace, this afternoon we had a different programme with Pascal.

"Let’s see how it is tomorrow, tomorrow is the important day and tomorrow is when you need to make the lap in the end. At the moment it is just a learning process."

Asked if it was difficult to adapt to the new car - having driven both the Mercedes and Renault already this season - Ocon replied: "Not so much, but you need time to arrive in mid-season to get used to the car. It is coming more and more. It feels nice"

And Ocon says one of the areas he still needs to work relates to the different procedures at Manor compared to the other teams he has driven for this year.

"It is coming but we are still working on understanding ourselves well, with my engineer. When he tells me the procedure at what moment, and how early and how late we can do it, we are still learning."

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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.