Out-of-work Esteban Ocon update on “options” and “priority” for 2025 drive

Esteban Ocon hopes his 2025 F1 drive can be announced soon - but stopped short of clarifying where he will go.

Alpine have confirmed that Ocon will exit the team at the end of this year, when his contract expires.

But he revealed ahead of this weekend’s F1 Austrian Grand Prix that talks for his next step are at an advanced stage.

“We are into deep conversations at the moment,” Ocon said.

“Discussions are going well, at the moment I’m confident with the future and hopefully it will be sorted soon and announced.

“Yeah I’m confident, but as you said, until it’s signed…”

Teams with a vacancy in their 2025 F1 driver line-up are Williams, Haas, RB and Sauber.

Ocon has lost an F1 race seat once before, in 2018 with Force India.

“I was confident as well at the end of 2018 but for different reasons it didn’t work out,” he said.

“But we have the experience of that.”

Ocon insists that being axed from Force India has given him a more proactive response to Alpine’s announcement that he wouldn’t continue with them into 2025.

“Yeah for sure, and at no cost want to live that again for sure,” he said.

“But as I said it’s going well at the moment, there’s a lot of deep discussions going well and it should be sorted soon hopefully.

“Yes, there are many options, but I will not comment on a priority.”

Ocon joins Carlos Sainz, Guanyu Zhou, Daniel Ricciardo and Valtteri Bottas among others as drivers with uncertain F1 futures.

They are all scrambling for the same limited seats with the assumption that Sainz - a grand prix winner last year and also this season - has the pick of the bunch.

Ocon reacted: I think it’s never been straightforward, the market, always been very strange.

“Always been reasons, not only on performance side, there’s been a lot of things going on.

“I don’t think it’s my favourite area of talking, I prefer to race on track, but it is a big things for us.

“It’s always been a very silly thing in Formula 1, these driver market topics.

“It is interesting when you get in there and the views of high end people on many different things, but in the end it is still mostly on performance – not only – but mostly, so I still have hope on that.”

This year at the Monaco Grand Prix, Ocon and teammate Pierre Gasly clashed to the annoyance of their employers.

Shortly after, Alpine confirmed they would not extend Ocon’s expiring contract. Gasly has penned a new deal with the team.

Flavio Briatore is also a high-profile arrival in an advisory capacity to Alpine who badly struggled at the start of this season, but who finished ninth and 10th last weekend in Barcelona.