Esteban Ocon becomes reserve driver for Mercedes

After a year as a reserve driver in DTM, Esteban Ocon will take on the same role with the Mercedes F1 team.

As this season follows a very successful previous campaign where he won the European F3 title ahead of a certain Max Verstappen, Mercedes decided to keep him within their ranks. Toto Wolff, the team’s director, confirmed the promotion of the young Frenchman: “Yes, we exercised our option on him because he has been following the DTM team for a while now, and he did a very good job in GP3. He is someone we really want to keep in the family. That’s why we exercised our option.”

It is therefore very likely that he will move up to GP2 next season, which has the advantage of having its race weekends at the same time as F1, making it easier to manage his schedule.

On the other hand, this raises the question of the future of Pascal Werlheim, who held this position this season. The German may also feel that he has fulfilled his part of the contract since he won the DTM championship. But the available F1 seats are limited to Manor’s two spots, which are therefore attracting a lot of interest. As of now, his fate is not yet decided: « This does not mean that we have found a solution for Pascal. The current driver market is a bit difficult because most teams have already announced their drivers, and it must be the right deal. »

Mercedes therefore finds itself forced to manage the careers of two promising young talents, similar to how McLaren did with Kevin Magnussen and Stoffel Vandoorne before letting the former go: « By taking Esteban, we are aware that we must find a suitable program for both. This may mean that both will end up with a testing role, a reserve role, and a role in DTM. This is not yet decided. »

In any case, this promotion can only put Esteban Ocon in the ideal mindset before the two most important races of his season.

From our special correspondent in Abu Dhabi