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Ocon convinced his car troubles have been solved

The Alpine driver is pretty sure he and his team have worked out what went wrong during the first triple-header of the season which allowed him to bounce back at Silverstone.

Esteban Ocon is adamant that the changes made to his Alpine machine ahead of the British Grand Prix enabled him to drive more normally on his way to ninth place at the weekend. Ocon, who changed chassis prior to the Silverstone event, struggled for three races and failed to escape Q1 on all three occasions. The Frenchman didn't go into details about his problems but is definitely a lot happier with the handling and pace of the car. “I’m pretty sure we’ve solved the issue that we had," Ocon told RacingNews365.com and other select members of the press. “It’s not only a chassis change that we’ve done, there were a lot of other things and other parts that we changed. “We spotted something and we questioned if that could be the reason. The only thing I care about is that I feel good now and as soon as we put the car [on track] in practice one, it was competitive like it should be.” Ocon was less than one tenth of a second behind Fernando Alonso in qualifying and finished in the DRS train that was being pulled along by the two-time F1 world champion on Sunday. A return to his form from earlier in the season is the target for Ocon. “Looking at the last three races, we were completely out of where the car was performing,” said Ocon. “We were a lot slower than the other side of the garage and the car was always capable of being in Q3 or just, that’s where we were supposed to be fighting, and that’s what we’ve done this weekend. “The first run of Q2 I was inside the top 10. There was a messy last run in Q2 run two with a lot of traffic and overtaking in the last corner before starting the lap. But otherwise, we could have been in Q3. “That hasn’t been the case for a long time so I’m pretty sure we’ve spotted what was wrong, and hopefully we can continue that run of scoring points like we were doing in the beginning of the year.”

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