However, unlike Bölükbasi and Schumacher, Ocon managed to salvage the situation and keep his car within a more or less “safe” margin, later admitting that he was “one degree away” from emulating Schumacher’s accident.
“I think one more qualifying and it would have given me,” says Ocon. “Exactly the same thing as Mick would have happened to me. And it’s not nice. Not nice at all,” he emphasized.
The Frenchman attributes this to not being able to warm up the tires as he would have liked. After the brief moment of shock, the Alpine driver stopped his lap: “I said enough is enough and I drove back to the pits.”
Ocon’s “near miss”, which was captured on television, forced Esteban to change the course of his qualifying day. However, he was able to finish fifth in the standings, becoming best of the rest, behind the top two teams, Red Bull and Ferrari.
Along these lines, Ocon knows that risk can be rewarded on the fast Jeddah circuit, admitting that “risk and precision” can take you to pole position on such a track.
“We know it’s a track where risk is rewarded. You have to push and push in qualifying. But not all the drivers seem to be aware of that as there wasn’t a single incident in practice.
On Saturday night, Haas confirmed that Schumacher would sit out Sunday’s race, preferring not to take any chances with his driver or pit situation, having to transport his cars from Jeddah to Melbourne for the Australian Grand Prix. in fifteen days.
