In an interview with Reuters, The Frenchman talked about how he learned from Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes during his year out as a reserve driver with the Brackley-based team.  

“I had good chats with Lewis, who gave me good advice not really on the sports side but more the managing side.  

He gave me good words and gave me directions of where to go. He was amongst a lot of people also a good teacher in all those parts. 

How he uses his time is very impressive. The way he works with his engineers and the life he has. All around he has a very busy life but when he does something, it’s 100%. 

Forget the rest. He does his things, he does it well, very precisely. But once he’s done it. Boom! He doesn’t lose time. He does something else.” 

I came out of there a lot stronger than I was, with a lot more knowledge on the technical side but also on the other aspects like the organisation and the way they [Mercedes] see things in different conditions. 

The way they just behave in any situation. I had an eye on all of that.” 

After a turbulent relationship with former teammate Sergio Perez in 2017 and 2018 which resulted in a series of collisions on track, Ocon hopes to have a better working atmosphere with Ricciardo it what promises to be one of the most interesting intra-team rivalries in 2020. 

“What happened in Force India is not something I want to redo again. It was not a nice atmosphere. We had respect... but the atmosphere between us was not so good. On track we came close too many times, that was clear. 

Definitely the atmosphere is a lot better between me and Daniel than it was with Checo... hopefully we are going to be solid on that topic and able to push the team forward.”