Esteban Ocon accepted the stewards’ decision to penalise him for impeding George Russell during qualifying.
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The Renault driver had moved to overtake Antonio Giovinazzi on an out-lap when Russell closed on the pair, delaying the Williams driver. Ocon said his team had not warned him that Russell was on a fast lap behind them.
“It’s unfortunate,” Ocon said. “I was on the out-lap and I was overtaking Giovinazzi, but I wasn’t aware Russell was coming. I got the penalty.
“I think it’s deserved. It ruined George’s lap, so it was not well managed from our side.”
Despite the Q1 incident, both Ocon and Russell progressed to Q2, though neither advanced further.
“It was definitely a tough qualifying,” Ocon added. “Between the penalty at the start and our overall performance today, I’m not happy with the result.
“We ran a lot of tests yesterday and today but we didn’t find the right configuration to put on the car.”
Ocon had initially qualified 11th before the penalty was applied. His team-mate Daniel Ricciardo reached Q3 and started third.
“There’s clearly a difference between the two cars,” Ocon said. “They’re nominally the same spec, but we’re investigating what went wrong on mine and what we can do to close that gap and understand its origin.”
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