Abiteboul: "He has never had such a strong teammate"

Strong teammate

Team boss Abiteboul also sees the differences, but puts them into perspective in conversation with Motorsport.com. "If you add the points he lost due to lack of reliability, he would still be behind Ricciardo. Even with quite a bit, but we are talking about Daniel Ricciardo here. Ocon has never had such a good teammate."

In other words, so far Ocon has a lot to do with the more experienced Ricciardo, despite the fact that he used to sit next to Perez who also has a lot of experience. "He had good teammates, especially Sergio Perez is very good, but I think Ricciardo is better," says Abiteboul. That certainly doesn't mean that there is no more stretch in Ocon, who is back now after a year's absence and in some ways has a backlog that needs to be put right.

We are referring to his development and his team boss says that it is only a matter of time. "He must become more pragmatic towards himself and set himself realistic goals. But he also needs to look at his own performance, not to be ashamed of it and to build further trust."

Finally, Abiteboul has a piece of advice for his driver: "He also needs to be a little more patient because, like other young drivers, he is sometimes a little impatient which forces him to make small mistakes. But I am not at all worried that it will be all right. The team around him will certainly be fine."