Esteban Ocon says Renault’s speed came as a “good surprise” after he beat Red Bull’s Alexander Albon to fifth position.
Renault had the third-fastest package throughout the weekend at Spa-Francorchamps and Daniel Ricciardo equalled the marque’s best result since its return by taking fourth.
Ocon embarked in a race-long duel with Albon and eventually prevailed to grab fifth, matching the highest finish of his Formula 1 career.
“We were not expecting to be fighting with Red Bull, which was a great thing, a great surprise,” said Ocon.
“I passed Albon at the start, we lost a place at the pit stop, so probably something we could’ve done better there. But we managed to retake the position which was very good.
“The pace of the car was awesome. There is one more chance next week because the characteristics are quite similar, so hopefully we will do the same or even better.”
Renault has typically shown well when using its low-downforce set-up across 2019 and 2020 but Ocon nonetheless felt the R.S.20 performed even better than anticipated.
“We came here expecting that we would be fast, and be a top 10 car,” he said. “We were not expecting to be that fast. It is a very good surprise.
“We are fast in the first and third sector, but we came here saying we are just going to drop the wing and see what it does. We think that is the optimum for our car to run that downforce level.
“After the tough one in Barcelona we try to look at what we could do better using the tyres, to extract the best from what we had.
“We understood quite a lot from those, so overall it is been a very quick car in the first and third sectors, but we have also been quick in sector two and that is good news.”
