ESTEBAN OCON GIVES FRESH F1 2025 FUTURE UPDATE WITH POTENTIAL RESOLUTION ‘VERY SOON’
Esteban Ocon is feeling “quite confident” about his Formula 1 future as it stands, and is hopeful of being able to comment on a potential 2025 seat “very soon”.
Ocon will be leaving Alpine at the end of the season and has been the subject of rumoured interest from Haas, as well as potentially Sauber for their transition to Audi, should primary target Carlos Sainz choose to go elsewhere – but while Ocon was tight-lipped over a destination, he said negotiations have been going “really well.”
Esteban Ocon: F1 2025 negotiations advancing ‘really well’
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
Two seats filled up on the F1 2025 grid over the Austrian Grand Prix over the weekend with the confirmation that Ocon’s current team-mate, Pierre Gasly, will be staying with Alpine, along with the long-expected announcement that Lance Stroll will be staying with Aston Martin.
Seven seats remain uncontracted for 2025 as it stands, and the French driver says that with negotiations over his future going well, he hopes to be able to be in a position to comment on where he will drive next year imminently.
“I’m quite confident that I will be on the grid next year,” Ocon told media including PlanetF1.com after the Austrian Grand Prix.
“Looking at the discussions from this weekend and in the last couple of weeks, it’s been going on really well.
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“So on that side of things, it’s looking good. I can’t comment more at the moment, but I hope that I can comment very, very soon.”
Having had a year on the sidelines in 2019, Ocon stressed that he knows that Formula 1 contracts are not a certainty until he has signed on the dotted line, however.
With that in mind, he is making sure to tread carefully until his next steps are finalised – though he is hopeful a repeat of that season is not on the cards at this moment in time.
“I had the bad experience in 2018 as you know,” he said.
“I had two contracts on the table in 2018 at the end of the of the year, one signed, one not signed and we stayed out and on the bench – so you never know until it’s exactly done in Formula 1.
“But yeah, it looks much more straightforward now and hopefully, as I said, it will be done very soon.”
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