Esteban Ocon responds to Max Verstappen near-miss after ‘stupid idiot’ jibe

Esteban Ocon was left bemoaning his luck after he was knocked out in Q1 in Las Vegas, following a near-miss with Max Verstappen at Turn 1.

On-board footage showed the Alpine driver passed the Red Bull driver through the final corner as they both looked to start a flying lap, which Verstappen did not take kindly to – re-passing him down the inside at Turn 1 and dubbing Ocon a “stupid idiot” in the process.

This scuppered both their laps towards the end of Q1, but while Verstappen was safely through, Ocon was not – leaving him down in 16th after Lance Stroll’s grid penalty is applied.

Esteban Ocon cannot ‘catch a break’ with incidents this season

Verstappen was far from pleased with Ocon’s on-track behaviour as they both wound up for flying laps, with the Alpine driver getting ahead of him through Turn 17 as they both charged up for a fast lap around Las Vegas.

The end result was both of their laps being ruined, with it proving particularly costly for Ocon as his exit in Q1 was confirmed while team-mate Pierre Gasly will line up on the second row on Sunday, once Carlos Sainz’s grid penalty is applied.

Ocon remains hopeful that he will be able to climb back into the points, with Alpine exhibiting strong top speeds over the weekend so far – a key feature around Las Vegas – but the Frenchman was frustrated nonetheless about how his qualifying session panned out.

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“Yeah, we don’t seem to catch a break this season really,” Ocon said in the TV pen when asked about that moment with Verstappen and his Q1 exit in Las Vegas.

“We always seem to be on the wrong end of things, you know, if it’s for penalties, incidents on track, collisions, whatever it is – we always seem to struggle and to be hurt by all of these things.

“Don’t really know what to say. Looking at the data, yes, we were going to be easily through.

“After that Turn 1, I kept pushing in case I was going to improve. I almost did, with the amount of lap time that I lost in in sector one, it was going to be a promising qualifying.

“So that’s how it is. Tomorrow, we have some good straight-line speed. Hopefully we can use that and hopefully we can be catching back up the order and being in the points.”

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