Idk why, but Ocon and Stroll being buddies because Stroll struggle making friends for being 'daddys cash' while Ocon struggles for being 'no cash' is kinda wholesome.

Always funny that no one ever talks about max in F3 being in one of the worst teams which hadn’t even had a podium in F3 in their history. Max won 10 races for that team. Ocon being in the prema which was by far the best team in F2 and F3 at the time.

Ok so this Ocon beat Max thing in Euro F3 needs a giant asterisk,, Ocon raced for Prema which in European formula 3 especially was almost a guaranteed championship,,, and Max raced for Van Amersfoort I don’t think even had a podium to that point and the fact Max won all those races showed the world how great he was.. and Ocon had one year single seat experience,, Max was in his first year of single seaters .. and Max’s VAR teammates didn’t even finish in the top ten…

There was nothing "unfair" about Max getting promoted to F1 out of F3 and Ocon not. Let's not forget that Max was driving for a backmarker team that year (vs Ocon in a top team) and had a whopping 8 DNFs and 1 DNS vs only 3 DNFs for Ocon. Without this DNF difference the F3 end ranking would have been a whole different story. Never mind that this was Max's rookie year in a formula car (vs 3 years of Ocon in Formula Renault and F3) and still he was schooling the whole grid in wet racing at the Norisring. Long story short, even then it was already obvious to everyone that Max was really something special while Ocon was just a great driver. Nothing "unfair" about that.

There's a saying where i live: "you are either born an a***hole, or life itself turns you into an a**hole" I think esteban's ambitions along with the conditions his family had from the beginning forged esteban into the type of person he is in the racetrack, for better or for worse.

Wait a minute, Tommo. Where is the crucial context to this story? Why leave that out? Max arguably had the greatest junior career of any F1 driver in history. He entered F3 as a rookie and did not drive in the best team (that honor went to Ocon driving for Prema), but a bad team (van Amersfoort Racing). In 25% of the races, Max had to retire. Despite that, he did something nobody had ever done as far as I know: win 6 F3 races in a row, let alone as a rookie. In the wet at the Norisring when differences were more equalized, he was like 2 seconds a lap faster than the competition. Of course, such a prodigy turns heads. RB only got Max as they could offer him a seat in F1, otherwise Mercedes would have gotten him. It's also funny that Ocon points out that he has not been able to battle Max in F1 in equal cars. Max got where he is, because he's so good. Max did not struggle, for example against Gasly who beat Ocon on points and in quali last season (to be fair, Ocon had to retire more, but Gasly maybe had less favorable strategy here and there). Max outright destroyed Gasly.

He'll never be my favourite driver, but whenever he's with fans he always stops to sign as much stuff as possible. At Melbourne he stopped for quite a while to get heaps of random stuff signed, and I really appreciated that. He never lets himself forget his humble beginnings

It might look unfair when Max who finished F3 in 3rd place got the call to F1 and Ocon as the winner didn't, but it is actually not. It isn't just about the points but the actual performance. If Ocon can show the same amazing drives as Max did, he would definitely got the call, so in the end it is a skill issue. Everyone that compare Max vs Ocon back then would say that Max is the faster driver. Remember that Ocon was in Prema and Prema was definitely one of the best team back then and still one of the best team today. Max basically show us that if you got the skill, people will want you. It doesn't matter if your car is inherently slower, you just need to show what you can do.

Why didn’t u mention max was in one of the worst f3 teams and ocon was in a Prema rocket ship

No way it’s been 3 years since the original ocon video

I find it a bit weird that you forgot, or refused to mention that max was driving a Midfield Team (Van Amersfoort Racing) during his F3 stint, while ocon drove a Top Team (Prema)

In F3, Max won the most (10) races, dnf’d 8, in the worst team, and was clearly the best driver in the field at 16. Cry me a river, Steven

The thing about Verstappen's junior career, was that it was literally his first and only year racing a car before F1. That's why it was so impressive and Merc and Red Bull were both looking at him and why he got fast tracked to F1 and Ocon didn't

Leaving out a lot of details about Esteban and Max’s racing history really diminishes the point you are trying to make here. Esteban’s story is awesome, but trying to diminish Max to boost Esteban is a bad look.

Ok but you can't compare Max's F3 Van Amersfoort to Esteban who raced for Prema. Van Amersfoort was blowing up and never won in the Championship before Max came along so it made sense to pick Max over Esteban.

Max would have won the championship by a landslide if his car had held up. He had 8 DNFs, half of it due to mechanical issues. So, it’s pretty obvious why RBR and Mercedes looked at Max instead of Ocon. Just consider what they’ve gone on to achieve since being in F1. Ocon’s pretty much an average driver with one or two odd races in a season where he delivers a good result.

5:18 "If Max had decided you know what I am alright now I dont fancy doing this anymore" this is such an ignorant statment, Max have said that he always felt that his parents have divorced because of his carting career not to mention Jos actually went bankrupt and was not able to continue supporting Max. You should have done more research on Max before talking about him.

Esteban was in a prema which has been frontrunner in F2/F3 forever, Max was in VAR which is at best mid field and at worst back marker. Max season was just far more impressive then Estebans Prema merchants are a dime a dozen.

Let's conveniently ignore what team Max was in, in F3 and the reliability and issues. Without that Ocon never would have beaten him and he knows that. I know the video is trying to defend Ocon but lets not brush over important details to make him look better.

I personally don’t like him as a driver, but I respect him as a person a lot due to the struggle. The pressure on him as a kid must’ve been huge and would’ve broken most people. And off track he seems like a fine bloke

Max drove for Van Amersfoort in F3, who had never won a race in that championship before, Ocon drove for Prema. Max also had an engine failure wich because of the strange rules in that championship meant Max had a 10 place grid penaly for the next 3 races, and Yes, Max was leading that race at the Nurburgring when the engine failed and could have also won all 3 races that weekend and he could have won more than 10 races and won the championship without that.

Ocon's aggressiveness against just about everyone was pretty much the result of having to fight his way to the top against other drivers and having to grapple with a "no room for error" mentality with how much was already put in. That pretty much grew to how he races in F1. Now that I think about it, I think there was something Toto said in Grill the Grid years back that F1 drivers are traumatized kids sent out in karts in the rain (or something like that) and maybe that's the case with Ocon. You basically spent a majority of the time knowing that the rug could be pulled out from under you at any point. Yes it's the case for a lot of drivers, but it's taken to a very literal extent with Ocon given the uncertainty in his career growing up. The problem is when you transition into a situation where you're not as under threat anymore like with him being an F1 driver. The mess in 2018-2019 is already behind him for 4 years now and he's so far had a contract and good career since then. I won't rule out that there would be someone outside F1 who could approach him (or there could be some he could approach). The problem now is that his hyper-aggressive mentality that brought him to where he is wouldn't get him any further when you have to work with others now, but that mentality is still stuck. In a way, it's good that he had that mentality growing up. But at some point he has to press the brakes on that and realize that he has to let go of some fights to focus on others. All drivers naturally fight with any car they see on track, even thier teammates. The question is on how out your elbows are compared to others. In Ocon's case, the elbows were fully stretched out more so than others.

Max was in a lesser team in F3. Many DNF that weren't his fault. So Max got to F1 earlier because he was just better then Ocon.

What I find interesting is that his best friend on the grid is Lance Stroll (another driver who gets a lot of hate). The two come from exact polar opposite backgrounds, one from a working class family making huge sacrifices and the other is the most monied driver on the grid. Also one speaks metropolitain french and the other speaks joual.

why did you skip the most important background information as to why Max was so much more impressive than Ocon in F3?

Short answer: He’s French

Max was in his first year of racing cars. He was with a team that had never scored a single podium and he had more engine related failures than anybody else that season. Ocon was driving for Prema with Mercedes backing. Max winning six in a row and ten in total made him obviously better than Ocon in F3 and in karting before that. Mercedes had Ocon as a junior and still desperatly wanted Max to join them. Says enough. So it´s not strange that everyone saw Max as the better prospect even though he finished third in the championship.

The main problem is that Ocon always paired with drivers with huge fan bases.. Perez, Ricciardo and Alonso.. With Perez i will also blame Checo for the crashes. Now the thing with Alonso is that everyone expected Ocon to be miles off Alonso's pace, but that didn't happen. Yesterday i saw a very interesting stat. Alonso and Ocon throughout 2022 and 2023 started next to each other 29 times out of 46 races( When Alonso was P7, Ocon P8, when Ocon was P6, Alonso was P7 like that). The closest any other teammate got was between Leclerc and Sainz and that was 12 times.. So you see, when you are starting next to each other in a race almost 70% of the time, there's always a chance that there will be some contact and it did happen.. In race too, Alonso and Ocon always remained close to each other so a chance of a contact is high. Now the main thing was Alonso's fanbase.. Tbh, Ocon don't even have 0.1% of Alonso's fanbase, so whenever any incident occurred, everyone would blame Ocon for it, but if we look closely there were some instances where Alonso could have avoided, but Ocon doesn't even have a fanbase to defend himself. If that was Verstappen or even Checo in place of Ocon, there would have been 2 opinions.

The fact I got an Alpine Ad on this🤣🤣

Imagine this for a second, the guy who finished 3rd in the F3 championship did so in his very first season of single seater racing. Not to mention he was the guy who won the most races that year and only missed out on p2 because of a disastrous last race.

The thing is, Ocon isn't in that "do or die" situation anymore. But he still acts like it and it just makes him come across as an asshole.

Seb and Danny also have blue-collar roots, but they're literally the most loved drivers

So what you are basically saying is that Ocon always feels a degree of fear and uncertainty about his future. This "fight-mode" mentality seems to have cultivated in him from his early days in racing where he had no option, but to always be the best to make ends meet. I'm no expert, but I think the best approach for Ocon is to work on himself mentally and rewire some aspects of his mindset. He is no longer in the same danger as he was before F1 (although you still always need to prove your talent to keep your seat). But he CAN feel more comfortable and not always go at 110%. He is an established driver and he CAN substitute that uncertainty with confidence and contentment. But to give him some credit, I think he is already showing some signs of 'ease' or 'maturity' since Pierre joined Alpine. This year Alpine doesn't have the capability to fight, so maybe Ocon can focus on himself and come out as a better driver.

Do you REALLY think Max could have quit racing as a Jr and he wouldn’t have been beaten & left for dead in a ditch by Jos? Doubtful.

He's an old school driver who has found himself in the wrong side of this "let's do marketing out of everything" era. Unfortunately, he's too deep in now to change his image. His results will determine how much longer he stays. Btw, if he was better perceived by the F1 world, I'm 90% sure he'd be Hamilton's replacement in Merc

Tbf Max had a lot of retirements due to bad reliability in F3. Otherwise it would have been much closer and he could have challenged for the championship win. But still, its totally normal that it felt unfair in the moment for Esteban.

Tbf, We used to read abt jos going damn near going broke to finance max’s karting career, and jos was repairing and rebuilding his own engine, perhaps partially also explains why jos was so hard on max, bc he equally went all in to finance max’s career… (besides jos just being an a-hole in general) and in f3 ocon had the winning car while van amersfoort racing was a small team, meaning max did better than ocon in a worse car, in terms of wins, as well as just showing he had something special, being able to do as well as drivers in better cars. That’s why toto and helmut wanted him over ocon

Trouble is Max is a generational talent and Ocon is a decent driver at best.

Ocon is a driver that I really want to see succeed even though I wouldn't say I'm a fan per se. He just has an incredible back story and the more I hear they more amazing it seems to get. I hope he at least gets to win another race (F1) before he's forced to hang it up.

it’s wild how he should be endearing and yet manages to be off-putting

Good reminder that there is no use in self pity. Noone gives a crap how hard your journey was. Only what you do now matters.

if max said " i dont fancy doin this anymore" he'll probably have a wrench shaped dent in his helmet

You bring up a good point: does a driver need to be a good teammate? If you look at any of the greats, they all have famous clashes with their teammates. But I guarantee any team would still pick them over someone friendly and mid

The "boop" sound for every image is a bit irritating.

I had a co-worker like Esteban, who grew up with nothing, always had to fight for everything being on the back foot. They see it as a means to survive because IT IS what has gotten them as far as it has. They don't know a world where they can relax and just smile and things work out. They know a world of scrapping and fighting tooth and nail for everything, with nothing ever being handed to them. They see every little thing as a slight towards them and an obstacle to be overcome with their own might and this can be really really annoying to those around them, because everything in life isn't a fight. Some people are really genuine and honest and want to help, but if you're like I got this, I can do it on my own, I've never needed anyone's help sort of vibes, you can look and potentially act like an a--hole to others and not notice it on your end, because in the end, you're getting those results with your might and fight. Now I don't know crap about Esteban, so I don't presume to know him or how he acts, that's stupid, but it's often very telling when seemingly everyone around you fails to get along with you. Can it really ever be "everyone else" is the problem when there is a marked pattern there or you see those teammates going on to get along well enough with other teammates.

I would say something.. but I see that everybody already cut this piece down 😂

At this point Ocon has nobody but himself to blame for not having a sponsorship backing which would make it easier to get into seats at other teams. He has been in the game for a long time. With Alonso’s help he even got a GP victory. If he can’t convince sponsors to back him maybe he should put a little more work into that. You don’t have to be the always smiling Danny ric type to build a fanbase and marketing value. Even Kimi had sponsors run after him. Even though it seemed like he actively tried to avoid any media duties as much as he possibly could

As far as i know, jos poured all his money into max. Pretty similar story. Although jos had connections with f1, that was the headstart.

Ive recently been conflicted with him a bit. On one hand, he is very aggressive but thats just a result of how hard him and his family worked to get where he is. I will always appreciate a driver who comes from a humble beginning

Pretty certain one of the teams in question was Mclaren Tommo as I swear Zak Brown said he was inquirying about Ocon in 2018 as Alonso was leaving and Vandoone was dropped, so they needed 2 drivers.

Thank you for this, Tommo ! Truly insightful and well done! Keep it up! ♥️💪♥️💪♥️💪

The comparison between Max and Ocon in F3 is like RB versus Stake. Where Ocon had the premium car and Max the glued together Van Amersfoort racing car.

5:20 lol i dont know Jos personally, but there is no shot max had the "option" of quitting. You dont get that good at anything without a healthy dose of abuse

Thank you for doing this video Tommo ,I really like Esteban and also impressed by his story ,and I think it is not fair for him to get so much hate , he is literally a talented driver and a nice guy if you try to pay more attention on his daily behave instead of just caring about those stupid media commentary

The biggest issuewith Ocon is that Ocon thinks he's way better than he actually is. He doesn't even come close to Max.

Incredible video! Probably one of the best you’ve done. People don’t account for driver psychology anywhere enough as they should. Hats off to you Tommo!

Ocon is a very good driver. Put him in a better car and he will compete. Would love to see him teamed up with Russell next year with Hamilton going to Ferrari.

Good video, I learned a bunch about Ocon.

I think Ocon gets along with Stroll because in a way, they both have chips on their shoulders. Ocon with how hard he's had to fight for his position within F1 and the uncertainty, and Stroll for always being in his dad's shadow and maybe feels unable to be his own person.

Ocon nearly had a 2019 contract with Renault, but that was before they realised they could sign Ricciardo so he couldn’t get it. And he’s been in the record saying that he was close to a Mercedes drive for 2019 replacing Bottas.

sound effects bad

watching this after he just crashed again with his teammate

Esteban is a lad who feels hard done by life and believes that he has to fight for everything in life and rightly so.

Dude, that transition sound you used in this video kept making me think my Photoshop was giving me warning sounds! I was freaking out! Please don't use it again.

Personal struggle is not a valid excuse for being a dick of a teammate.

Now we not only have a Frenchman blaming others - hahahaha

in Formula 3 Ocon was champion yes but Max was the best driver on the grid even Ocon knows that deep down if he don't want to act blind! Ocon was on the best team/best car, Max raced for two teams the first team was a midfield team and Max had tons of mechanical problems DNS and retirements. And when they actually raced wheel to wheel Max put Ocon on his pocket all the time! Every resume we see of this formula 3 season we can clearly see Max was a different calibre of driver!

thanks for bringing back gran turismo music

Ocon's beginnings are very much like Schumacher's. Not born to riches. Even Schumacher drove with used tyres during karting days, in rain with no grip from the tyres. No wonder he eventually became the regenmeister. Respect for Ocon. Ocon needs to get an opportunity with a top team, it'll be interesting to see.

Many thanks for this. He is one of the very few drivers that did not come from a wealthy background. Lewis and possibly Seb are the only ones that I can think of. Love to see you do a video on how those that came from similar backgrounds

I dunno, I quite like Ocon tbh.

It makes sense him and Stroll are friends. They are both somewhat outcasts on the grid although basically for opposite reasons.

At best, this may shed some light and assist in understanding where Ocon comes from... but it doesn't at all justifies him being a giant douche. Ocon's back story is common in sports but we don't even have to go far having Lewis going through very similar circumstances and not becoming a giant douche... Being an asshole is not a pre-requisite for greatness... the problem is that many "regular" folks find nothing else they can potentially imitate to feel they may be on track for greatness

Tommo, I love your videos and the design and presentation is always great, but that NOISE when a picture comes up is really jarring! Don’t know if others have commented, but boy is it annoying!

If you think Jos was a millionaire just because he was an F1 driver, you are very much mistaken. He was at times a pay driver, or at least had his pay boosted by sponsorship, and he was pretty much always the #2 in the team. He and Max had to drive to (usually) Italy from the Netherlands after school on Friday in a van (I think from the descriptions, it was essentially a transit van, but I could be mistaken and it could have been a caravan or similar. I always stand to be corrected). He would be reusing kart tyres in much the same way Ocon described, except they just used his own tyres until they virtually fell apart! It's one of the reasons why he's so good in the rain. Don't mistake the above for me being a Max fangirl (I stopped being one of those when Damon retired), I'm 100% neutral. May the best team/driver win and all that (though being a Brit I'm always pleased for the underdog when they do well, including Alpine!) I just think that people have a rose-coloured view of Max's rise to F1. It was Dietrich Mateschitz who spotted Max's talent, btw, and he urged Marko to sign him up. He said so when Max won in Austria for the first time in a brief chat with Channel 4. Marko didn't need much persuasion.

I’ve seen it in motocross most my life, unlike a Stroll, Lando or Verstappen who come from a family who’s financially well off. Ocon at a young age had to become the provider of his family and viewed 2nd place as “ taking money away from feeding my family”. I’ve heard motocross champions say “ it gets to a point you’re not doing it for the love of the sport but rather the unbearable feeling of letting your parents down”. You can point to so many times where Ocon finally had stability just to get brought back to the fighting he had to do. When you’re raised like that it’s impossible to turn it off cause it’s almost acts like trauma knowing you can be sidelined like 2019 even if the results are there.

Gran turismo 7 sound clip used

When Ocon said he cried in the parking lot when he lost his seat and opportunity to drive in F1 my view of him shifted completely! 😢 I now support Ocon to get Mercedes second seat 😅 Everyone else except Hamilton was rich before they ever stepped into the sport, so keep going you son of a mechanic 😂😂😂

I want Ocon to do well and I hope he matures into the driver he needs to be to survive. I think if he can settle into a team that can offer him longer term stability he can become the driver many of us think he is.

What I don't get about Ocon is how do you fumble an underdog story this bad. He could be the underdog, the man of the people, the one that could be landing supermarket and sportswear contracts for an inspiring story... and yet 8 years later we're talking about how unlikeable the guy is, and we trying our best to find how to understand him and his racing spirit. Such a wasted opportunity and with the talent he has, such a waste in general. Excellent video, as always, mister Tommo.

Love the content, but is it possible to take the little sound that happens every time a picture appears on the screen? It is very distracting when you are just listening.

It sounds like Ocon has been a bit hard done, but F1 is the pinnacle of motorsport. There's peobably 10s of thousands of drivers vying for the various seats in the F1 pipeline, and all of them probably have similar stories about being exceptional in their own ways. Ocon refuses to see that he is not as exceptional as max, he does not dominate his teammates to the same degree, he puts in good performances, but then so does most every other driver on the grid. It sounds like he would be a better driver if he worked on his temperament instead of carrying this chip on his shoulder over every perceived slight.

I like him. Hes funny, a good driver capable of great races and overtakes. Needs to tone it down in battles with teamates when its happened also i think he should leave Alpine to see how he really does. Aston Martin or Mercedes are the 2 main teams i see taking him if they hav a open seat if there's no better options.

It’s very interesting to hear everything that Esteban has gone through, for sure helps me understand him a little better, but I can’t stop thinking about this quote “ Your attitude, not your aptitude,. will determine your altitude ”

Wait.. do you always use the GTA V sound effect when swapping between photos?

Looking at the personal lives of Ocon and Stroll, it feels weird cause they're best friends. There's numerous interviews where they both say it, so I wonder how that friendship was effected by Stroll going to Racing Point. Who knows.

The f1 reputation of Jos Verstappen is scary? Do you find Jan Magnussen scary? Max was spotted by Toto and rbr on talent not because of Jos. Toto Ocon was and IS his manager ffs. Ocon was in same position and tells another story about Ver. He thinks he is a better driver then Alonso . You should watch that season again. ...Beautiful story with his dad, bad teammate.

bruh what is that audio at the start, headphone users beware

What'a up with this mega annoying noise every time a background picture is changed?

This video is a masterpiece, congrats tommo, great job

Even his own car hates him, that’s why he had 7 DNF’s in 2023

ofcourse it Max’s fault again. F1 is boring, red bull is too dominant.

Toto said they had agreed for a seat at McLaren. There were even talks of him having a seat fit to move to the team in mid-2018 to replace Vandoorne, but then they signed Sainz.

0:02 damn man, i thought my earphones broke 😂

I dont get all the hate for Ocon, he actually worked his ass off unlike all the rich boys in F1

Esteban Ocon is the Ross Chastain of F1. Had to scrap SO hard to get to where he got that that’s the only way he knows how to drive- balls out, me-first, and screw everyone else. But when you make it to the big time, it’s a whole other way of operating, and he struggles switching gears

Man this aged like milk after Monaco.

Great video dude!!!

Esteban has shown that he is one of the most capable drivers on the grid. Give him a good car and I'd say he'd be on Carlos Sainz's level

1. Jos didn’t have a lot of money, he had knowledge and connections but to a lot of risk(debt) for Max. 2. Ocon had a Mercedes powered Prema (Absolute top team in junior classes) (3dnfs), 1 year of open wheel racing experience. Max a VW powered VAMR (10dnfs) (never won in F3) was a rookie to open wheel racing. 3. Both Helmut and Toto wanted Max. Even when Ocon was powered by Mercedes, Toto wanted Max and never, even in the future, would really consider Ocon. The only thing unfair is that Max has about 3 times the talent Ocon has.