Ocon shares moments that ‘amazed’ him from his time working with Hamilton

Esteban Ocon has opened up on the moments that “amazed” him from his time working with seven-time F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes.

The current Alpine racer – who will depart the team at the end of the season – has had a long association with the Brackley-based squad, joining the Mercedes Junior Team before claiming the GP3 title in 2015, while he went on to act as the F1 team’s reserve driver in 2019 prior to joining Renault for the 2020 season.

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Ocon is currently in his fifth and final season with the Enstone outfit, now Alpine, but his links with Mercedes continue to this day with the German manufacturer still managing his career – something that saw him linked to Hamilton’s vacant seat following the Brit’s decision to move to Ferrari for 2025.

In an appearance on the High Performance Podcast Ocon opened up on his time working alongside Hamilton when he was Mercedes’ reserve driver – a period that followed bitter disappointment after losing his seat at Force India following the 2018 campaign.

Asked if there was any work Hamilton did aside from his natural ability that had impressed him, Ocon replied: “Definitely. I remember Lewis coming from different marketing events and all these things in a race weekend – Lewis is a very busy man. Apart from racing, that’s some of the differences compared to some drivers who are more focused onto the racetrack.

“He’s got a very busy life in general and seeing how he switches his focus from one thing to another, for me that kind of amazed me that he was straight away on point, back with his engineer after something completely different.

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“He didn’t take 10 minutes to refocus and re-work with his engineers because you don’t have time to do that. He always had his paper boards with notes and he was always having notes not to forget things from one year to another, or one session to another. This is what I do as well now.”

Admitting that he had never taken notes before watching Hamilton work, Ocon went on to explain that he also now meticulously stores notes on his phone for his engineers.

Asked when he would make notes, the 27-year-old said: “Performance meetings, problems to fix, all of the points that we have to go through that I’ve put basically as an example.

“Then I phrase things to be able to retransfer to the engineers at the right time. But, if I don’t write them at the exact moment that I’m going to come out of the car, I will not remember exactly or they’re going to be much more vague.

“If I go to a marketing event... and then come back and I’m like, ‘I had something very interesting, but I don’t remember it’, imagine how much that would cost basically – to us, to our performance.”

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Ocon’s chief focus is now securing his future in the sport, with a number of teams – including Kick Sauber and Haas – believed to be interested in his services.