The Alpine driver was further pleased by the fact that he was only “50% fit” physically after his heavy crash in FP3 on Saturday.
51G’s impact with a concrete wall caused him to miss qualifying and thus he was forced to start from the back of the grid after the spare chassis was fitted by the team.
He gained two positions when both Aston Martins had to start from the pitlane, and then worked his way around the grid with a long initial stint on the hard tyre.
He was able to switch to soft tires during the safety car after Lando Norris’ crash and eventually finished ninth on track before earning a place on a penalty from team-mate Fernando Alonso.
“I’m delighted, I think it’s a win for us,” he said when asked by Motorsport.com about his comeback.
“Clearly there was a mountain to climb for all of us, but I think the strategy, the radio messages, the tire management… everything was perfect. And to finish in the points also being 50% physically, for me it is like a victory “.
“It’s a different challenge, it can go wrong, it can go right. This time it went well. But it’s not very nice, like I said, running at 50% physically. Here it’s as difficult as Singapore in terms of humidity and heat.”
The decision to go out with the hard ones paid off for the Frenchman and also for George Russell.
“We knew what we had to do,” Ocon said. “We wanted to do a lot of hard riding, we wanted that tire to last a long time, so I had to push quite a bit at the beginning.”
“It was harder than expected, I thought the tire was never going to activate but it did, so it was good.”
“We weren’t very quick at the beginning, and then the pace slowly, slowly increased and we became very quick compared to the other cars.
After getting out of the car, Esteban Ocon admitted that he still felt sore after Saturday’s accident.
“I have to thank the guys, because on Saturday everything broke in the car. I could see it the next morning and the seat was in pieces. The pedal box was completely broken, the accelerator, the brakes, everything is broken. And the chassis, obviously.”
“It was a big impact, and I felt 50% in the race. But we’ve done it, and that also shows that we’re doing a good job physically.”
When asked about the specific aftermath of the accident, he said: “Knees mainly, lower back, some bruising here and there on the heels. It was 51 G’s, very painful.”
Ocon also witnessed the crash between Mick Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel late in the race, which occurred as the three drivers battled for position.
After crossing the finish line, he spoke with the Haas driver in Parc Fermé.
“Obviously the three of us were fighting together, there were big tire differences, Mick was on a 30 lap tyre, Seb was on a nine, and I was on a new set of softs so we were all fighting very closely. Obviously these things happen, and it’s not my business to comment on them”.
“We talked about it, but Mick knows what he has to do, he’s an F1 driver, he’s very talented, he doesn’t need my advice at all.”
Ocon pointed out that the controversial asphalt of the track contributed to the collision: “We heard before we came here that these stones from Georgia are the best in the world, that it was one of the best tracks on the planet. But it is a disaster, we can not overtake” .
“Mick butted heads with Seb partly because of that, because you can’t get inside, and when you disconnect you lose half a second.”
“There was only one racing line, it doesn’t work at all. We should go to a track like Jeddah, which I think is perfect.”
