Force India Responds to Bizarre Ocon Mercedes Conspiracy

Mercedes may have sealed their fifth consecutive constructor’s world championship in Brazil, but the world can’t seem to put them under any spotlight. The current spotlight lies with their young protege, Esteban Ocon, who for no reason at all, collided with Max Verstappen, who was then leading the race. FIA gave him a 10s stop go penalty for the same, while Verstappen lost the lead and hence lost the race.

The Ocon Verstappen collision went on to favour Lewis Hamilton, who clinched the victory and sealed the constructors trophy. This all seemed a bit too fishy for Red Bull’s Helmut Marko who went on to raise an unnecessary conspiracy.

According to Motorsport Magazin, he stated: “A Mercedes driver who is promised a seat for 2020, the leader drives into the car – unbelievable. 

“One could have told him, ‘Hello, that’s the leader, he has new tires on it, do not attack him!

“That such an idiot gets only a 10-second penalty, I would have expected a lock.”

Force India were quick to respond to any such claims and sided with Ocon.

“That’s a conspiracy theory and I doubt a racing driver is thinking about his drive for 2020 with what he does today. Absolutely not,” Force India team boss Otmar Szafnauer told Sky Sports F1. “Esteban came on the radio and said can I unlap myself because I am quicker and we said yes go ahead. That’s it.

“At that point he had a tyre advantage and we probably would have had a tyre advantage for five, six, seven, eight laps.

“Whatever Max was doing to gently bring his tyres in, we didn’t need to do that. At six laps with a half-second tyre advantage, three seconds, we were racing other people and can’t get stuck even though it is behind the race leader. So yes we had to do it. In our race we had to do it.”