Esteban Ocon

Esteban Ocon lost his seat in 2019 and spent a full year as Mercedes reserve driver, watching races from the pit wall. Very few come back from that. He returned with Renault in 2020 and the following year won the Hungarian Grand Prix.

That race sums up what he does well. A first-lap pile-up took out half the grid, he led away from a chaotic restart and held off Sebastian Vettel for seventy laps with the German glued to his rear wing, without a mistake all day. It is his only win in more than 190 races, and it came where those races are decided: in not making the error everyone else did.

His career is built on hard intra-team duels, with Sergio Pérez first and Fernando Alonso later, and on a reputation as an awkward team-mate he has never much disputed. His best championship was eighth in 2022. Since 2025 he has raced for Haas, once again at a team where the job is squeezing out what there is.