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Ocon, Perez admit they let Force India down
Force India duo Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon have admitted to letting their team down with their on-track clashes, as they promised their bosses there will be no repeat incidents in the future.
Jonathan Noble
Edited: Aug 31, 2017, 2:30 PM
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The duo's collision in the Belgian GP has prompted Force India to impose team orders on the pair to stop them battling each other in the future, with further threats hanging over them if they clash again.
Perez and Ocon cleared the air at Monza on Thursday with private talks at the Force India motorhome and then further discussions during a cycle ride of the track.
Following the chat, Perez was confident that matters were now sorted as he denied suggestions that the pair's future partnership was untenable and one of them would have to leave.
"We both know that we have done wrong in the past for this team, and my main target is not thinking to run away," said the Mexican.
"I think working with Esteban is still possible. It can be a successful partnership and I am not thinking of moving elsewhere."
Ocon said: "I think we both crossed the line – that is for sure. We touched, so something was wrong in there.
"I won't argue because it is all behind us now and we want to move forward. We crossed the line and we cannot do that in the future for the purpose of the team and for us."
He added: "We have to move forward, we had a talk this morning together just us two, and it is time that we forget all that, that we work hard for the team.
"That is what is important and that is what they deserve: that we behave as professionals and we want to keep challenging the others, keep pushing them and keep that fourth place to the end."
Morning chat
Perez said that he approached Ocon on Thursday morning in Monza where they believed that drawing a line under what happened was important.
"I went to Esteban's room and I had a talk with him," he said. "The engineers had their view [on what happened]. It was pointless going through each incident, as everyone has their point to say, so we said let's just move on together, let's forget the past and go forwards together.
"I believe a new relationship can start from now on and I hope from now on we can start working as a team and put the interests of the team first. We both came to that agreement and it was quite simple."
Team orders rethink
Ocon hoped that some good behaviour from himself and Perez in the future would hopefully convince Force India to let them race again in the near future.
"We have to get the bosses' trust back, and then maybe they will let us race again," he said.
Perez added: "What we cannot afford is to lose more points. Things change really quickly in F1. We see other teams are closing up, so we definitely need to score, especially in strong races like Spa and Monza as they are probably the strongest races for us.
"We have to make sure we score as many points as we possibly can, that is for the good of the team. Everyone works so hard at the team and factory. We have to take the maximum out of car, that is how we do it, and we have to definitely make sure we do it properly."
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