Alpine’s Esteban Ocon says he has cast away any lingering doubts following his return to the points at the British Grand Prix two weeks ago.
The Frenchman’s car was fitted with a new chassis after a run of four races in which he failed to reach Q3 on Saturday or the top 10 on Sunday.
At Silverstone, Ocon benefitted from the Sprint Qualifying format, moving up places in the short race from where he qualified on Friday.
In the grand prix, he crossed the line in ninth, marking his first points result since May’s Monaco Grand Prix.
“Straight away when we put the car down for FP1 [at Silverstone] we saw that everything was working back to how it felt three races ago and that’s very good news,” Ocon said.
“It was a big effort from the team to try and diagnose what were the issues and what to change.
“So doubts are out of the way now and everything is working as it should.”
Ocon confirmed that it was not only the chassis that was altered ahead of the Silverstone weekend, however he refrained from providing comprehensive information.
“I am not going to go into details but there were a lot of different parts that we changed together with the chassis,” Ocon said.
“It was not only the chassis but when you take the chassis out you check all the components that go with it.
“It’s been a good thing to rebuild the car, check exactly if everything was correct and rebuild it fresh basically. All the doubts are gone in this way.”
