Ocon and Wehrlein blame each other for clash

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Esteban Ocon and Pascal Wehrlein blamed each other for their clash late in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Wherlein was defending from Ocon - who was on fresher tyres - when the pair collided at Turn 11, both cutting the chicane having run wide. With both cars ahead of the Saubers, it had the potential to cost Manor crucial track position and Ocon said he felt his team-mate had not left him room when he tried to attack on the outside of the corner.

“I was on a different strategy, I had more pace at the end,” Ocon said. “I went to the outside but he didn’t leave any space so we collided and I had to go off track.

“To be honest in this race all the overtakes I did someone crashed into me. [Kevin] Magnussen crashed into me at the start, then [Felipe] Nasr I was on the outside of him and he turned into me and Pascal the same. He didn’t leave me space and locked up, so there was a lot of damage everywhere on the car but I didn’t lose so much downforce so that was alright.

“It happens. We fight together, we touched a little bit, there’s not a drama about it. Probably it didn’t break much, the car felt OK at the end. I pulled out two seconds on the last lap so that was still good.”

When informed that Ocon had said he didn’t leave space, Wehrlein disagreed, replying: “I didn’t leave him room on the outside?

“If he would watch to the right side I think there was more than 100 metres left for him, so if it’s not enough, I don’t know. I think the guy on the inside maybe didn’t have enough room but if it was him on the outside and he didn’t have enough room I don’t know. I don’t know what he said.

“Nothing happened so in the end we both went wide and cut the chicane. There was a big pace difference at this time from the tyres.”

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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.