Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has claimed Esteban Ocon would likely be a clear choice to drive for Toro Rosso in 2019 if he wasn’t associated with Mercedes.
The Frenchman is seemingly racing on a week-by-week basis at Force India as work continues behind the scenes to facilitate Lance Stroll’s move from Williams while keeping the 21-year-old on the grid.
A move to Renault was cancelled after Daniel Ricciardo opted to leave Red Bull and McLaren also rejected the opportunity to sign him with Horner explaining the reasons why.
“For what is relatively little investment by Mercedes it’s been to their merit that they’ve helped these guys to get into F1,” he told Motorsport.com.
“But now it seems to be almost an anchor being a Mercedes driver. Being on a recall mechanism isn’t attractive to a vast majority of teams.
“The crazy situation is you’ve got a driver like Ocon who might end up without a seat next year. If he was to be contractually free he’d be an obvious candidate for Toro Rosso,” the Briton added.
“But Red Bull aren’t going to invest in a Mercedes driver, understandably, and I wouldn’t expect the same to happen the other way round.”
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Despite the uncertainty, Ocon himself believes he is doing all he can to prove himself.
“Of course it hasn’t been an easy situation. I’m trying to do the best I can on track and I don’t think I’m doing too bad,” he told RaceFans.
“It’s not a distraction because I manage to switch off quite well and I’ve been in more difficult situations than I am in now.”
