Alpine F1 team’s Esteban Ocon has revealed the competitive edge he adopted from none other than seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton. During his time with Mercedes, Ocon has been profoundly impressed by Hamilton’s rigorous work ethic and his dynamic ability to juggle various highly demanding roles seamlessly. He’s now revealed the secret behind his success.
Esteban Ocon, who once played a vital role as Mercedes’ F1 reserve driver in 2019, marvels at Hamilton’s uncanny ability to transition between roles with seemingly effortless precision.
“Definitely. I remember Lewis coming from different marketing events and all these things in a race weekend – Lewis is a very busy man. Apart from racing, that’s some of the differences compared to some drivers who are more focused onto the racetrack,” explained Ocon during the High Performance Podcast. He was particularly taken aback by Hamilton’s swift focus shifts.
“He’s got a very busy act in general and seeing how he switches his focus from one thing to another, for me that kind of amazed me that he was straight away on point, back with his engineer after something completely different.”
What struck Ocon the most was Hamilton’s meticulous method of maintaining notes. It has not only ensured that Hamilton never missed a beat when it came to switching between tasks but also maintained his competitiveness over others who might take longer to recalibrate.
“He didn’t take 10 minutes to refocus and re-work with his engineers because you don’t have time to do that. He always had his paper boards with notes and he was always having notes not to forget things from one year to another, or one session to another. This is what I do as well now,” Ocon added.
Adopting this keen approach to the documentation of his thoughts, Ocon now ensures he keeps detailed records of performance meetings, problems, and noteworthy observations—all stored meticulously on his phone.
“Then I phrase things to be able to retransfer to the engineers at the right time. But, if I don’t write them at the exact moment that I’m going to come out of the car, I will not remember exactly or they’re going to be much more vague.” The cost of missing these details could be detrimental to team performance, as Ocon illustrates, “If I go to a marketing event… and then come back and I’m like, ‘I had something very interesting, but I don’t remember it’, imagine how much that would cost basically – to us, to our performance.”
With his final season at Alpine approaching in 2024, Ocon’s career remains under Mercedes’ management, sparking speculation about his next steps in F1, particularly with Hamilton’s impending shift to Ferrari in 2025 and a possible vacancy at Mercedes.
