Ocon's lessons during late season turnaround provides hope for new season

Esteban Ocon believes the turnaround in his fortunes towards the tail end of 2020 will enable Alpine to hit the ground running in its debut season in Formula 1.

The Renault name has left F1 from a manufacturing perspective and transitioned into Alpine, although the French company will continue to provide engines to the sport.

For Ocon, it will be his second campaign with the Enstone and Viry-based squad, one in which he feels he can hit the ground running

The French driver struggled early on during his comeback season with the team but pointed to the lessons learned in the final part of the campaign as a reason to be optimistic for the new term.

"I think I would say Monza was the turning point where we really started to work a lot better, together with my side of the garage," he said.

"We were producing stronger weekends from the beginning basically and we were building up the car and the performance through the weekends a lot better.

"I would say that was the turning point of the season and from there it just got better.

"Even what we learnt at the end of the season, it was good stuff and gave us a step each time so it is nice."

Ocon pointed to the team's failure to clinch third in the constructors' standings as a negative of a competitive season but insisted the experience can be used as a positive this year.

“It’s a bit of a shame we missed third place in the constructors' but there are a lot of positives to take on board and things we didn’t do perfectly right as well,” added Ocon, who will have a new team-mate in Fernando Alonso.

“We will work, taking the positives and cancelling any negatives, and then we should be in a pretty strong position.”

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