Manor Formula One rookie Esteban Ocon says handling blue flags during a race is “not easy” and adds that “compromises” are needed between the leaders and the backmarkers.
Blue flags were a much-discussed topic in the aftermath of last Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix, as several frontrunners complained of losing time in traffic.
Ferrari team-mates Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen were the most vocal in their criticisms, with the four-time world champion hinting that he lost out to Lewis Hamilton for P3 partly after locking up when lapping one of the Manors.
“[Suzuka] is a track that is so narrow and there are so many high-speed corners that when you are one second away you interfere with the guy behind,” Ocon said in response to complaints about backmarkers. “It’s not easy, we are not going to let them pass if we are three seconds ahead.
“The amount of time we lose, we try to gain 0.1s on a lap and then we let them past from three seconds ahead and we lose three seconds. So you have to make compromises.
“We fight for what we have, they also fight, so at the end we are both in our race and we try to make the best possible but sometimes it is like this.”
When pointed to him that the amount of complaints in Japan was noticeable compared to other events, the Frenchman added: “It’s always been like this. I think it’s not because the cars go quicker or not.
“I think also before when you are behind there was more aero on the cars and you are also losing speed. Probably they complain, if they complain for me it’s the same thing. I don’t care!”
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