Szafnauer rejects Marko's "conspiracy theory" on Ocon

Force India team principal Otmar Szafnauer has trashed Red Bull advisor Dr Helmut Marko’s suggestion that Esteban Ocon ran into Max Verstappen under orders from his parent team Mercedes, saying Marko’s comments were a mere “conspiracy theory”.      

Marko went on Austrian radio to put some question marks next to the fact that Ocon is an aspiring Mercedes driver who is very keen for a 2020 seat, and that maybe he took out Verstappen to get in favour at the Silver Arrows.

“That’s a conspiracy theory and I doubt a racing driver is thinking about his drive for 2020 with what he does today," Szafnauer countered when talking to Sky Sports F1.

"Esteban came on the radio and said ‘can I unlap myself because I am quicker’ and we said ‘yes go ahead’. That’s it.

“At that point he had a tyre advantage and we probably would have had a tyre advantage for five, six, seven, eight laps,"

“Whatever Max was doing to gently bring his tyres in, we didn’t need to do that.

"At six laps with a half-second tyre advantage, three seconds, we were racing other people and can’t get stuck even though it is behind the race leader.

"So yes, we had to do it. In our race we had to do it.”

Ocon sent his Force India down the inside of Verstappen’s Red Bull at the second turn of the Senna S at Interlagos but the Frenchman ran out of road as Verstappen was still ahead. The two clashed and spun around. Verstappen lost his lead to Lewis Hamilton and finished second, and Ocon got a ten-second stop-and-go penalty which cost him multiple positions as well. Still, Szafnauer doesn’t think his driver did anything wrong.

"The rules state that you’re allowed to unlap yourself and Esteban was much faster than Max at that stage. Unfortunately he wasn’t left any space in the corner and that ruined the race for both.

"Esteban had done a good job making up ground from the back of the grid and would have probably finished in P11 if it hadn’t been for the clash with Verstappen.”