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Ocon options narrow after Toro Rosso snub

Ocon options narrow after Toro Rosso snub

07-09-2018 10:25

Esteban Ocon has seen his F1 options for next year get even smaller after Red Bull boss Christian Horner has revealed that Red Bull’s junior team, Toro Rosso will not be signing Esteban Ocon, due to his Mercedes links.

Part of Ocon’s contract as a Mercedes young driver states that he must drive for an F1 team powered by a Mercedes engine.

His seat at Force India is set to be replaced by Lance Stroll after the team were bought out of administration by the Canadian’s father, Lawrence Stroll.

With the Mercedes seats already taken by Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas, it leaves only Williams as an option for Ocon, although he will be competing for a seat with plenty of other drivers that may have more financial backing than he has.

Without the Mercedes issue, Toro Rosso would be a good place for Ocon to hone his talent before perhaps seeing a promotion to Red Bull, but Horner admits that this is not possible

Horner told Motorsport.com: “For what is relatively little investment by Mercedes it’s been to their merit that they’ve helped these guys to get into F1.

“But now it seems to be almost an anchor being a Mercedes driver.

"Being on a recall mechanism isn’t attractive to a vast majority of teams.

“The crazy situation is you’ve got a driver like Ocon who might end up without a seat next year. If he was to be contractually free he’d be an obvious candidate for Toro Rosso.

"But Red Bull aren’t going to invest in a Mercedes driver, understandably. And I wouldn’t expect the same to happen the other way round.”