The Meeting With Toto Wolff That Saved Esteban Ocon's Career and Other Stories About Him You Probably Didn't Know

Toto Wolff saved Ocon’s career

A career in racing is hardly guaranteed for anyone, and opportunities can disappear at any moment as quickly as they come by. Ocon himself is all too familiar with this, as his own career hung in the balance back in the mid-2000s. Despite having a fairly successful run as a young karter and getting the role of reserve driver for the Lotus F1 team in 2014, his funding was quickly depleting with no other backers lined up to support him in the coming year. 

So he did the only thing left that he could think of and asked for help from none other than Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff. Having just won the F3 European Championship title with Prema Powerteam, who were using Mercedes engines, Ocon had the opportunity to meet with Wolff, and took his shot.

"I asked if he could help me for the future," he said to Lawrence Barretto in an episode of Off the Grid. "He was my last chance, my last hope. If he was saying there were no options, the whole dream would have been gone. But he called back and said, 'You are going to race with ART in GP3 and if you succeed in that one, we take you in the [Mercedes] programme'."

And Ocon rose to the challenge, taking the 2015 GP3 title. He only ever won one race in the season, but his consistency (in the form of nine consecutive second place finishes and 11 podiums in a row) secured him the grand prize in the end. True to his word, Wolff put Ocon in the Mercedes driver program, and halfway through the 2016 F1 season, Ocon had joined Manor Racing as a replacement for Rio Haryanto and the rest is history. 

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His family sacrificed their home for his career

“We were living [in the caravan] with my mum and dad and my dog.” Ocon recalled his unique childhood to Barretto in the same episode of Off the Grid. “Every day I woke up with a different scenery. I remember one day opening the door and it was a view of the sea and we were in Monaco. It was amazing. That moment will stick with me forever."

Indeed, Ocon’s early life was full of ever-changing views as his family travelled frequently in their caravan. But the story of how that caravan came to be is one of immense faith in a young driver and the sacrifices his family made to help his dream come true.

“[My parents] were the biggest supporters of my career but that is too small of a word,” Ocon said during a 2021 interview with The Guardian. “They sacrificed their own life and put it to one side for me to be able to chase my dream. They sacrificed everything they could for me to continue my racing career.”

That came in the form of selling their house to have the funds they needed to ensure Ocon could keep karting. The family moved into a caravan that they drove from one karting event to another, with Ocon’s father, Laurent, serving as his mechanic too. The sacrifices were worth it, though, as Ocon showed immense talent, winning seven different karting titles between 2005 and 2011, and made his F1 debut five years later with Manor.

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He has spent half of his life asleep

Being an F1 driver is nowhere near as simple as sitting down and driving a regular car. The physical load of a single F1 race alone is immense, with estimates of drivers burning around 1,200-1,500 calories per grand prix and losing anywhere between 4 to 6 pounds from sweat alone. Add to that the mental load of keeping race strategy in mind, as well as additional responsibilities such as media duties, post-race debriefs and so on, and the life of an F1 driver gets pretty exhausting.

“All of that contributes to mental fatigue, which in effect creates more of a sleep need,” said Tom Clark, who acted as Ocon’s personal performance coach until 2025, to the Athletic. “So it’s not uncommon for F1 drivers to need 9, 10, 11 hours-plus (of sleep).”

For Ocon himself, however, this number has always been a little higher. When asked by Red Bull reporter Justin Hynes what his worst habit was, Ocon replied, “I have to sleep at least 12 hours a night, which is massive.

“Fifty per cent of my life is gone but that’s how I’ve been since I was a kid.”

12 hours may sound like a lot to the average person, but for someone like Ocon who has been karting since he was a kid and now drives in an extremely physically and mentally demanding motorsport, it’s a recovery tool rather than a bad habit. 

Want more surprising facts about this year’s F1 drivers and race tracks? Sign up for our newsletter for a bonus fact about Liam Lawson, and be sure to check out our other Speed Reads:

• How One Overtake Earned Liam Lawson a Red Bull Contract and More Facts About Him You Didn’t Know
• The Time Charles Leclerc Crashed Niki Lauda's Car and Other Stories About Him You Didn't Know

Images via Haas F1 Team Media