Esteban Ocon lost the rear of his Alpine midway through FP3 on Saturday as he passed Turn 13, causing a heavy impact against the barriers placed at that point.
The French driver confirmed by radio that he was uninjured, but the impact warning light alerted the FIA and forced the Alpine driver to visit the medical centre, where he had to undergo an examination and was later released.
However, damage to Ocon ‘s chassis meant the Frenchman’s goodbye to qualifying, forcing him to start from the back of the grid for tomorrow’s race.
The accident occurred in the same place where Carlos Sainz had had a very similar incident in practice on Friday. Ocon revealed that Sainz had raised the matter at the drivers’ briefing, asking why there was no Tecpro barrier in place.
“It’s really unacceptable, it’s been 51G, so it shouldn’t have been such a big impact,” Esteban Ocon said.
“When Carlos complained about it to the race director, we were all there listening, but nobody said or did anything.”
“There was an argument on Friday night. Carlos said the impact was too big for what it should have been. I felt the impact huge. To be honest, it’s probably the biggest accident of my career.”
“On Friday Carlos hurt himself. I also hurt myself on Saturday. The FIA should do more for our safety. The important thing is that we can race, and I will be able to race too.”
Ocon explained that his knees took the brunt of the impact. And he also admitted that the chassis could have been repaired in time for qualifying if there had been a Tecpro barrier in that same position.
“When a professional driver of the caliber of Carlos , who is at Ferrari, says something like that, I think the minimum is to take it into account and do everything possible to make a change,” Ocon said.
The Frenchman explained that he “wasn’t going to go into details” about Race Director Niels Wittich ‘s explanation of the lack of a Tecpro barrier, but also said he thought “those things will be sorted out from now on”.
Speaking on Sky Sports after qualifying, Sainz echoed Ocon ‘s words about their crashes, which shouldn’t have been that big given the speed at which they were arriving in that area at the time they crashed.
“I’m sorry to be critical, but on Friday I told the FIA that my hit when I was in second gear shouldn’t have been so hard, on Saturday my neck hurt a little,” said the Spaniard.
“I told them, let’s put Tecpro there, because it’s a very hard cement wall. Esteban crashed, and I’m sure he felt it too. And it’s one of those things that I’ll never understand,” he concluded.
