Ocon: Atmosphere better with Ricciardo than with Perez

Esteban Ocon says that the dynamic between himself and Daniel Ricciardo as team-mates is better than the one which he had with Sergio Perez at Force India.

The 23-year-old was team-mates with ‘Checo’ Perez between 2017 and 2018, but it wasn’t a particularly harmonious relationship, with team orders being implemented after the pair actually came together during a couple of races.

There were fears that history could repeat itself with new Renault team-mate, Ricciardo, but Ocon insists things are different this time around.

“What happened at Force India is not something I want to redo again,” he told the official F1 site.

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“It was not a nice atmosphere. We had respect - me and Checo - and it didn’t slow down the team or anything but the atmosphere between us was not so good.

“On track we came close too many times, that was clear, and that was not good. It’s not something I want to do again. The atmosphere is definitely a lot better between me and Daniel than it was with Checo.

“So if we can keep working like that, even though it’s going to be different on track, it’s going to be a lot better for everyone to have a positive energy and a great working environment. Hopefully, we’re going to be solid on that topic and be able to push the team forward. But no, we don’t want to have that happening.

“Of course it can always happen at the start or something, but in a race like it happened it was not acceptable.”

Ocon was previously a member of Mercedes’ junior driver program, but his relationship with the Silver Arrows was severed in order for him to make the move to Renault to replace Nico Hulkenberg.

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