Alpine F1 Team’s Esteban Ocon who has been unwell in the build up to this weekend’s 2023 Formula One season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the Yas Marina circuit hopes that he can end the season with a top ten finish.
The Frenchman starts the race from 12th place with a time of 01:24.391s and speaking following the action he said:
The last Saturday of the season is over and we’ll start in twelfth place on the grid tomorrow. Obviously, it is has been a disrupted week for me, so I think we did well to make the most of what we had in our hands. We’ll all be pushing hard tomorrow to end the season on a positive note. It was a good but busy final Practice, trying to perfect our set up ahead of Qualifying, which started well and we had good pace to get through to Q2. Unfortunately, I did not have the best last run and we ended twelfth in the end, missing out of Q3 by just a tenth. We are not far from the points and even came from way further behind last week and into the points, so we will use that as motivation to fight for a top ten finish.”
Pierre Gasly made it into Q3 and starts the race from tenth place with a time of 01:24.548s and speaking following the action he said:
I’m really pleased with today’s result. We knew it would be tight and very close to reach Q3 and it even proved challenging to make it out in Q1 such were the fine margins. My Q2 lap was very strong, I was happy with that as it meant we comfortably made the top ten. Q3 was slightly messy for us and I feel like we did not maximise the session. We will analyse what happened, what we can do better, but still, I was certainly satisfied to be in Q3 again. We’re starting in a good position for tomorrow and our target is to get some points. It will be a tough race and it’s the last one of the year. I will give it my all and it would be good to end the season with a positive result.”