Esteban Ocon has been happy with his new car Renault’s RS20 during pre-season testing.
Ocon felt more control over his car than he has ever felt through-out his career in Formula 1. He passed the comments in Barcelona after the testing on Wednesday morning.
After a bad Monday, the Frenchman took the car on track with more energy to expedite the results. He was very optimistic about 2020 performances and pointed out that the drivers will be able to surpass their old lap times.
Ocon has been in Mercedes driver academy where he had the opportunity to drive W10 on simulator and at Paul Ricard last. Additionally, he had also driven last year’s Renault after the season at Abu Dhabi. He made the record breaking comments while comparing Renault RS20 with W10.
“There are always differences,” he said while comparing RS20 to W10. “But to be honest, the amount of grip there is this year already, I think if you take it in account the fastest lap time, we’re already faster than the fastest lap time of last year first day.
“So I think the cars are just evolving year-by-year. It’s hard to compare, but the amount of grip I feel now I think I’ve never felt it before.”
He added: “I don’t know if it’s the track, but I drove on Monday in the filming day. And yeah, it’s impressive, those new cars, I have to say.
“I’ve never went that fast in some corners before, so it feels good. It’s definitely exciting. Because that’s just going to go faster and faster. So we’re going to probably break all the records of laptimes I reckon this year.”
He expressed his first impression of the new car and said: “It’s a good base that we are having at the moment. Sometimes when you step in cars and you think ah, there is an issue that you’re trying to solve for the whole winter, there isn’t any kind of that at the moment.
“So it feels pretty healthy. But it’s only the first morning. We have to wait and see how this evolves during the test.”
