Take an exclusive look into the off-track life of Esteban Ocon in our new F1 TV series

When a Formula 1 driver arrives at a racetrack, he selects full race mode and puts everything else out of his mind to focus on the day job. Over the course of the last decade covering the sport, that’s usually the mode they’re engaged in when I get to talk to them through my role as an interviewer for F1. But for a change of pace and as part of an exclusive new series, I headed Off The Grid to hang out with the sport’s elite racers away from the office.

In the third and final episode of this series, Grand Prix winner Esteban Ocon invited me to Geneva, the place he now calls home, to join him on a training day. The Frenchman, who like his rivals Oscar Piastri and Pierre Gasly in the opening two episodes gave up one of his personal days to take part in filming (rather than via mandatory team media or commercial time), talks expansively about his family selling their home to fund his career, his relationship with fellow French racer Pierre Gasly, his rivalry with Sergio Perez, the pain he felt as Manor went under and his new chapter with American squad Haas.

Esteban Ocon grew up surrounded by cars, as he would spend his days watching – and, when he was old enough, helping – his mechanic Dad tinker with machines. When Sundays came, he was glued to the TV watching Formula 1, so it’s perhaps not surprising he quickly zero-ed in on a career in motorsports.

“I was watching F1 on a Sunday, I was shocked but also fascinated at the same time,” says Ocon, when we chat in one of the quaint corners of his stunning training base 321 Perform. “The love for the sport grew from there. At the same time, I got a taste of karting. I wanted to only drive all the time. Many kids say I want to become an astronaut or footballer. For me, it’s always been Formula 1 driver and it’s never changed since I first talked about it.”

Racing is obviously not cheap – and the Ocons weren’t wealthy, but his family believed in him to such an extent that they opted to sell their home and move into a caravan to fund his go-karting career. How did he feel when his Dad told him they were going all in on him?

“Dad said, ‘It’s now or never’. It was an immense amount of pressure. I didn’t have a normal childhood, but we were living [in the caravan] with my mum and dad and my dog. Every day I woke up with a different scenery. I remember one day opening the door and it was a view of the sea and we were in Monaco. It was amazing. That moment will stick with me forever.”

Ocon and his family clocked up tens of thousands of kilometres travelling to various karting meets across Europe – and once there, he’d encounter some of the best karters in the world, including Gasly, whom he had known since he was little because they grew up in Normandy and who had used his kart to get a first taste of motorsport.

“I was on that little go-kart track in Anneville, and I was practising for the regional championships that were coming up,” says Ocon. “Pierre was playing football and my Dad said to him quit these shoes and jump in Esteban’s go-kart. The following week, Pierre got a go-kart as well. We were driving together – I was showing him the line first and then we were racing together.”

That relationship fractured as they made their way through the lower racing categories – “Pierre was my best friend when I was younger,” he says. “Then we grew up and things changed a little bit” – but there was a wholesome moment in Brazil in 2024 when they unexpectedly shared the podium racing for French team Alpine.

“Two kids from Normandy racing for a brand from Normandy,” he says. “Who would have thought? This world has a billion people, we’re just two little guys from France – it’s quite crazy. That moment meant the whole world for us. The only thing I would love too is for us to share even more podiums in the future.”

The Frenchman returned from that race to find a large image of him hoisting the trophy for P2 aloft in his apartment. It was a gift from his girlfriend Flavy – and one of the many mementos he keeps on display in the house, which range from a Spiderman book Daniel Ricciardo gave him as a secret Santa present, which sits on his coffee table, to a handmade steering wheel from a fan, which has working clutch paddles. I had a little mishap with a red-coloured drink, which you’ll see in the episode, but can report none of these items were damaged!

Ocon may never have got to F1, though, as funds started to dry up when he made it into single-seaters despite his success in karting. So he took a punt when he had the chance to meet now Mercedes boss Toto Wolff. “I asked if he could help me for the future,” says Ocon. “He was my last chance, my last hope. If he was saying there were no options, the whole dream would have been gone. But he called back and said, ‘You are going to race with ART in GP3 and if you succeed in that one, we take you in the [Mercedes] programme’.”

He did succeed, winning the GP3 title in 2015. Wolff was there, standing under the podium to congratulate his soon-to-be newest member of the Mercedes family. Then in the summer of 2016, he gave Ocon a call and offered him the thing the Frenchman had a dreamed of – a shot in F1 with the Manor team when the campaign resumed at Belgium’s Spa-Francorchamps track.

“I remember receiving the call when I was on holiday with friends,” he says. “I had to go straight away to do a seat fit at Manor to join the grid in Spa. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. We were having a drink – I don’t drink alcohol, I was having a coke or something – and I remember looking at the TV in the bar and seeing myself on the news. And I was like, ‘Oh, that’s me!’ People were talking about me on live TV. I didn’t believe it. It was pretty nuts!”

He came close to scoring a point in Brazil, in what was one of the slowest cars on track, but faded in the closing stages to end up 12th. He spent much of the race battling with Sauber’s Felipe Nasr, who scrapped to ninth to score two points and hoist the Swiss team above Manor in the championship. That had big repercussions for the minnows in terms of prize money as it left them last in the standings – with the team ultimately going into administration.

While Ocon’s form would be good enough to get him a seat at midfielders Force India for the following season, he took Manor’s demise hard. “We didn’t succeed and the team died at the end of the year,” he says. “If I scored more points than that Sauber car, maybe it would have been a different outcome, keep the team alive for the following season. I felt that it was almost my fault. That was very tough. I moved on from them but there were fantastic people working in this team and it was tough to see this team went unfortunately.”

Ocon enjoyed an impressive first full season in F1 with Force India – but while he and team mate Perez scored consistently to help the team finish a superb fourth, they also gave their bosses some big headaches with multiple clashes on track. “It was a lot of pressure,” says Ocon.

“I was racing against someone who was very experienced, he was a consistent scorer in the midfield, probably the most consistency. I started on the backfoot in the first race but I caught up well and then we were racing very closely. There were moments where I did mistakes, there were moments when I don’t feel it was necessarily my fault.”

He adds: “I was very young, I was inexperienced, I wanted to push hard and show people I what I was capable off. At the time we were just racing hard and trying to race as best we can, and that’s also why we got so many points that year because we were racing very well together.”

“These kinds of moments shouldn’t have happened. It cost the team points. I’ve made mistakes over my career, and thing I shouldn’t have done in racing, but that’s how you learn from it. We all make mistakes but it’s how you overcome those. That’s the way I saw racing back then, the track was what matters the most.

“Still I believe the track is what matters the most, but things could have happened in a different way. With how much respect I had for Checo at the time, and I still have now, I would have preferred things to go in a different way. We finished with a very good championship position for the team with P4, and a top 10 finish in my first full season. It was solid.”

After a year on the bench working as a reserve for Mercedes, Ocon reclaimed his spot on the grid with Renault – which ultimately became Alpine and yielded the machine that gave him his first, and as yet only, Grand Prix win. We downloaded the final lap of the Hungarian Grand Prix in 2021 when he triumphed onto a tablet so he could enjoy reliving it mid-interview.

“When I crossed the line, it meant the whole world to me, to all the people who were working so hard for it,” he says, a beaming smile etched across his face – along with a few fist pumps in the air – while he watches. “All we did through all my life was worth it just for that moment. It was a beautiful moment.”

Ocon spent five years with the Enstone-based team from 2020, but as he approached the end of that period, things started to get challenging and he began considering his future – and ultimately left the team one race early, missing the chance to complete 2024 in Abu Dhabi. “At the beginning of 2024, and even at the end of 2023, it was clear the vision I had for the future and how we were moving forward with the team was not matching what I wanted,” he says.

“I didn’t want to let anyone down. I gave 120% every single time I was behind the wheel of that car. Unfortunately it didn’t end up the way I wanted. I had prepared a special helmet for my last race, I had planned to go and visit the team, but I didn’t get that option.”

Ocon started afresh at Haas last year, linking up with boss Ayao Komatsu who engineered him in his first-ever Formula 1 test when he did a session with Lotus – with his ambitions laser-focused on adding to his win tally and fighting for a championship in the future. “The best option and how it was presented to me, was to go to Haas. Ayao is a very straightforward person. He has the biggest sense of competing that I have ever seen out of anyone. He doesn’t want to lose.

“The way he presented me the straightforward plan, what he is going to build for the team, and what he has already built now. It was for me the best option. I want to be racing and winning in the future. I will give everything until I manage to secure what I want. And if I don’t manage to win, I will have given everything, no regrets.”

You can watch the full episode of Off The Grid with Esteban Ocon on F1 TV and F1’s YouTube channel.