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The year was 2014, and a certain sensation named Max Verstappen had captured the interest of every F1 pundit. It was his first year in car racing and he was competing in Formula 3. Even though he had just made his way to F3, the Dutchman was being courted by two of the biggest teams in F1 at the time.
On one side there was Toto Wolff trying to sign Verstappen as a Mercedes academy driver. On the other side, Helmut Marko was trying to goad him into an alliance with Red Bull. In the end, Verstappen went with Red Bull, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Verstappen made his F1 debut in 2015, was promoted to Red Bull in 2016 where he won his first race, and has now won three world titles. In all of this, there's one thing that many forget, Verstappen did not win the Formula 3 title in 2014. He finished third in the championship and the title was won by a certain French driver named Esteban Ocon.
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Almost a decade later, both drivers are in F1 and while Ocon already has a win and a handful of podiums to his name, for a driver who last beat Verstappen to a title, this is not what he would have thought his career would look like.
Going into the 2014 F1 season, Ocon heads into the unknown. His current contract with French manufacturer Alpine comes to an end this season, he got outscored by his new teammate (and former adversary Pierre Gasly) in 2023, and while the Alpine squad he is a part of has not looked promising at the very least, the driver seemingly does not have too many options for him at this stage.
When we talk about a driver that last beat Max Verstappen in a title fight, this is certainly not how he would have expected from his career.
The contrasting fortunes of Max Verstappen and Esteban Ocon
When we look at the career graph of Esteban Ocon and Max Verstappen, the 2014 season proves to be the inflection point. Until that point, the duo had raced against each other throughout karting, with both having stories of triumph to share as well. However, after 2014 while Verstappen was fast-tracked to F1 in 2015, reality set in for Ocon.
While the Dutchman was admittedly on a fast track and reached F1 after his stint in F3, Ocon just did not have the jetpack behind him as he moved to GP3. After winning the title in GP3 as well, the French driver made it to F1 the hard way in 2016 with backmarker Manor.
By 2016, Verstappen was already a Red Bull driver and a race winner as well. For Ocon, it has been a bumpy ride since then as he has continued to drive midfield cars all his career. It began with the Force India in 2017 and 2018. After a year out of F1 in 2019, the driver has raced with Renault/Alpine from 2020 onwards.
His contract ends at the end of the 2024 F1 season and with most top team seats already occupied and Alpine proving to be a woeful underachiever, Ocon's career seems stuck at the moment.
What went wrong?
One of the major limitations that Esteban Ocon has raced with throughout his career and has arguably no fault in is the lack of finances. The fact that the French driver has even made it to F1 seems like an achievement when he details what his family had to go through to help him reach this point.
His career suffered a serious blow in 2019 when he had to sit out as Racing Point preferred Lance Stroll (the owner's son) and Sergio Perez in the car. When he came back to F1 in 2020, because of a lack of testing at the time, it took him a lot of races to get up to speed with the car and the team. Since then it's been a bit up and down as Ocon has been teamed up with some brilliant talents.
He has been teamed up with Fernando Alonso, whom he beat in 2022 and lost out in 2021. He has been teamed with Pierre Gasly as well, against whom he lost out at the end of the season in 2023.
While Max Verstappen can claim that he's decimated everybody he's been teamed up with over the last few years, Ocon has no such claim and that is precisely why he might not be very high up on the wishlist of many teams as his contract comes to an end.
What's next for him?
While Esteban Ocon has shown some serious determination, resolve, and grit within a team, he has also shown that he can take on some of the best talents in F1 as well.
Having said that, he's not what one would call a driver around whom a team can be built. He hasn't shown the consistency or the elite level of performance often to put him in the same bracket as Lando Norris or Charles Leclerc.
As a result, a driver who still has the claim to be the last man to be Max Verstappen in a title fight does not have too many options. For Ocon, the first half of the season is crucial. He has to make sure he maintains the upper hand over his teammate Pierre Gasly and at the same time, he has to keep his eyes open for potential suitors.
Should he be able to do that, he could make the next step in his career. For Ocon, the one driver who he can look up to and model his career around is Carlos Sainz. The Spaniard has grown in reputation over the years but it wasn't always like that. It has taken time and smart decision-making.
When we talk about Esteban Ocon, we talk about a driver who is just a peg below the elite level of Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, and others. Having said that, with the right decision-making and of course some luck, the Frenchman could still achieve a lot in his career.
