Esteban Ocon Hits Back at Haas Rumors at Canadian GP

Esteban Ocon has come out to address the rumors, the French Haas driver categorically denied that there is a rift with the American team, as some media had published after the Miami Grand Prix: "The stories have been made up with no foundation, there were no real sources," he declared this Thursday on press day ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix.

The rumors pointed to a possible confrontation between Ocon and Ayao Komatsu, the team boss, and even speculated about an early departure for the Frenchman before the end of the season: "I joined this team because of Ayao, because I've known him for a long time. He was my first race engineer in F1, he will clarify the misunderstandings later with the media," Ocon explained.

Ocon joked about the lack of credibility of the reports: "When I read the article that triggered all this, they called Komatsu 'Ryo Komatsu', as soon as I read that, I stopped reading," he stated. The Frenchman, who has scored just one point so far this season (tenth in Japan), acknowledged that the speculation has affected him personally: "At the end of the day, I'm human, when things escalate so much and there's so much fuss, it affects my sponsors, my family, everyone around me," he confessed.

The 29 year old Ocon assured he had never experienced such a situation in Formula 1: "It's not normal that you can invent stories like that and get away with it without any problem, you can't lie about things," he denounced. The Frenchman wanted to make it clear that his priority is the work within the team: "What matters is the work we are doing inside the team, as long as Ayao is happy with that and sees that I'm trying hard, that's what matters most," he stated.

Ocon's season is being complicated, while his teammate Oliver Bearman has scored 17 points in four Grands Prix and two sprints, the Frenchman has barely added one unit. Haas, which opted not to bring upgrades to Miami, will debut a new upgrade package in Canada.

Bearman, however, will have priority, the Briton will debut the new parts throughout the weekend, while Ocon will receive them after the sprint race and before qualifying, the team wants to compare the performance between the old and new specifications. "I look forward to seeing what this will bring us and I hope it helps us get back into the top 10, because Miami was a bit difficult for us," Ocon stated.

The Frenchman, who joined Haas this season from Alpine, trusts that things will improve, in the meantime, he will have to live with the rumors and with a teammate who, for now, is clearly outperforming him.