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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Sport
Daniel Moxon

Esteban Ocon recreates iconic F1 moment at Belgian GP involving Michael Schumacher

Esteban Ocon produced one of the overtakes of the season as he roared past both Pierre Gasly and Sebastian Vettel to finish ahead of them at the Belgian Grand Prix.

Remarkably, it was his second double overtake of the race. He had already driven past Daniel Ricciardo and Nicholas Latifi at the Bus Stop chicane, a move which saw him take up a position in the points after starting 16th with a grid penalty.

But the second was the one which got fans and pundits alike purring. Both Gasly and Vettel were passed on the Kemmel Straight by the Frenchman, who went on to finish seventh to score points in a great weekend for Alpine.

What made that move even more impressive was the way it was eerily similar to an overtake performed by Mika Hakkinen 22 years ago. At the 2000 Belgian Grand Prix, the Finn also moved past two drivers at the same time, one of them being Michael Schumacher.

On that occasion, he used the lapped car of Ricardo Zonta to disguise his move to spring the surprise on the Ferrari star. As Schumacher went left, Hakkinen went right and came to the end of the straight ahead of both cars.

This time the sides were reversed, as Gasly moved to the right while Ocon went left to pass Vettel. But it had the same outcome, with the Frenchman ahead of both cars and mightily pleased with himself when discussing the move after the race.

"I was like, the detection is there and he's passing Pierre too early, because he's not going to get the DRS," he said. "From there on, I lifted the throttle a bit, got myself a little bit of a gap to be able to use the straight-line speed.

"And then the surprise and confirmation was that Pierre had DRS. I was able to go on the left side. Seb was very fair, he could have closed a bit on the left but he didn't do, and I managed to get Pierre around the outside of Turn 5."

On the parallels to Hakkinen's move from two decades ago, Ocon added: "Mika came and talked to me before the race as well in the paddock! It's a good coincidence. It was definitely good fun. I've enjoyed the racing today, the car was extremely fast in a straight line, so I was managing the timing right about when to overtake.

""From where we started, I think 16th or 17th, I think we were expecting one point and we got six out of today. So definitely a good result for us."

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