Ocon confident of beating Perez over remainder of 2017 season

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Esteban Ocon is confident he can gain the upper hand on Force India team-mate Sergio Perez in the latter half of the season as he completes a full year in Formula 1 at the Belgian Grand Prix.

It has been a fierce intra-team scrap at the Silverstone outfit, with a costly collision in Baku the flash point as well as two examples of a faster driver being forced to sit behind the other in Canada and Britain.

Currently, Ocon is just 11 points behind his teammate in the standings and has only once beaten him to the chequered flag despite scoring points at 10 of the 11 races so far.

The Frenchman, though, pointed out that he was closing in on Perez before the summer break and is hopeful of edging ahead.

"In the beginning, I had a lot to learn definitely," Ocon, who made his F1 debut for Manor at this race last year, told reporters on Thursday. 

"This season I was getting faster and faster in qualifying, I beat him in Budapest, at the last race before the summer break. I’m just getting closer to him all the time, giving him a hard time and that’s my target for sure. We raced really close just before the summer break together.

Having now raced at every circuit on the calendar, the 20-year-old Mercedes junior is hoping the experience can now come in and continue his progression.

"I hope that it will help me that I’ve already done some races last year from the second half [of the calendar] and I will make sure I can beat him for the rest of the season," he commented.

Ocon also insisted there is no tension between the pair, who held clear-the-air talks after their recent incidents.

"All our relationship has been good together," he stressed. "Even if we had some touches in a few races, we always had talks after the race. At the moment nothing has changed since the start of the season."