A frustrated Esteban Ocon said the first race of 2026 felt like a flashback to last year as he didn’t enjoy the same handling balance as his team mate.

Ocon said he made a breakthrough with his car at the final race of last season after struggling to match team mate Oliver Bearman for several rounds. But he was deeply disappointed by his pace after making a strong start.

“We were supposed to get in the points after the mega first lap that we did,” said Ocon, who moved up five places at the start and ran eighth at the end of lap one. “We moved [forward] a massive amount, it was definitely awesome the way we launched.

“But after that, the pace was very bad, which was a big surprise. It’s just a flashback of last year, really.”

Ocon said it felt as if the team’s cars were handling differently again. “We don’t seem to have the same cars, myself and Oli,” he explained. “One car has a lot of instability, the other one has a lot of understeer.

“But you would have taken the understeering car in that race. So it is frustrating to say the least because I think there was a lot more that the car could have done if it was in the right shape. It’s disappointing that we didn’t end up in the points obviously.”

He took the chequered flag in 11th place, less than a second behind Pierre Gasly. Bearman, who finished lap one six places behind his team mate, was thrilled to lead the midfield runners home in seventh.

“It’s a special feeling to start off the new regs like this,” he said. “It’s a great result for the entire team [to be] best of the rest.

“Of course we benefited from a few retirements from people ahead of us, but regardless, those are points and we’re going to take every one of them. I’m really, really proud – like I said yesterday – of the effort that the team has made.

“Putting the car in P7 just shows and kind of validates all of their hard work. That was on the track where we were struggling a little bit in deployment and missing a bit to our competitors, so it’s a really proud moment and I’m really happy with this result.”

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2026 Australian Grand Prix

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Keith Collantine

Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 – when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring journalist, Keith began running the site full-time in 2010, achieving a long-held ambition to dedicate his full attention to his passion for motor racing. View all posts by Keith Collantine