{"id":496080,"date":"2025-10-13T12:06:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T12:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/496080\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T12:06:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T12:06:19","slug":"the-tough-times-that-led-to-ocons-f1-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/496080\/","title":{"rendered":"The tough times that led to Ocon’s F1 career"},"content":{"rendered":"

Any Formula 1 driver can rightfully say they didn\u2019t quite have the same childhood as regular kids, but that\u2019s even truer as far as Esteban Ocon<\/a> is concerned.<\/p>\n

Ocon\u2019s parents ran his early karting career on a tight budget; they even had to sell their house and automobile repair shop and live in a caravan to make ends meet, with father Laurent his mechanic and engineer.<\/p>\n

While the youngster won multiple French championships and moved on to international competitions, the ever-increasing travelling requirements took a toll on his schedule \u2013 as well as his ability to mingle with his classmates and his academic prospects.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d come home from the race on Sunday night; in the morning I\u2019d wake up in front of the school,\u201d Ocon recounted in an interview on French YouTube channel Legend. \u201cIt was easier that way when we drove back, as we didn\u2019t exactly have a place to stay. We stayed at my cousin\u2019s most of the time, we parked our caravan there. But as it was already very late, we gained time by parking in front of the school, then I went straight to class.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo no, I didn\u2019t have a lot of friends. Many told me: \u2018You\u2019re a gypsy, what are you doing here?\u2019. I have great respect for the itinerant community \u2013 they actually sold us the caravan! [My classmates] made fun of me, and it wasn\u2019t easy, for sure.<\/p>\n

\u201cI missed quite a lot of classes, because on Fridays we needed to go to free practice. Even the school\u2019s headmaster, at the time, told me: \u2018You\u2019ve got to stop doing this. Frankly, you\u2019re not going anywhere. This is a rich man\u2019s sport. There\u2019s no point in you doing this.\u2019 Well, sir, thanks for ruining my dreams, but I made it!<\/p>\n

\"Esteban <\/p>\n

Esteban Ocon at the 2013 Macau Grand Prix<\/p>\n

Photo by: Sutton Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s sad, telling a 10- or 11-year-old child that he can\u2019t make his dream come true.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ocon said he moved to long-distance schooling when he was 14, with teachers mailing him lesson plans that his mother Sabrina led. He eventually was signed by the Enstone-linked Gravity Sport Management agency, which boosted his career until he joined the Mercedes<\/a> young driver programme following his European F3 title success.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not recommend doing what we did to any youngsters, because school is very important,\u201d the current Haas driver insisted. \u201cYou need to work hard at school, you never know what the future has in store for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

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– The Autosport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Any Formula 1 driver can rightfully say they didn\u2019t quite have the same childhood as regular kids, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[16023,4199,707,4200,130090,130103,79,163209,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-496080","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-esteban-ocon","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-formula1","12":"tag-marina-bay-street-circuit","13":"tag-singapore-gp","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-the-tough-times-that-led-to-ocons-f1-career","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115366775517750154","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}