Ocon took a strong sixth place in qualifying, lapping the Jeddah street circuit 0.813 seconds behind poleman Sergio Perez – who led the Red Bull charge after a driveshaft failure for Max Verstappen.
His Alpine teammate Pierre Gasly, meanwhile, was another 0.3 seconds slower to take ninth place.
Despite track changes for 2023, including pushing back the walls to open up some corners and improve visibility, Ocon revealed he scored the concrete barriers twice on his critical Q3 lap.
Ocon felt he broke the car with the impacts, saying: “I’m still breathing and catching my breath because it’s been a very stressful qualifying.
“The margins are so small and the amount of pushing and risk you have to take here, it’s quite impressive.
“I hit the wall twice on my fastest lap, in Turn 1 and the last corner.
“I thought that was it, I thought I broke something.
“I kept pedaling to the metal, thinking it would have been OK.
“I got even better…that was probably the maximum.
Esteban Ocon, Alpine A523
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
“I was happy with the lap, happy with how we improved the car from FP3 to [qualifying] because FP3 didn’t feel right and the way we wanted it.
“Hopefully we can give the other cars a good fight tomorrow.”
Ocon added that he had to “disconnect” from the car due to its unstable, snap-directed behavior during testing when the car broke free in the high-speed 22-23 left-right corner.
This, along with other ‘close calls’, has him fearing a repeat of the car shunt suffered by Mick Schumacher at the circuit last year which forced the ex-Haas driver to miss the race.
“There were corners where the car was a bit trickier than others,” Ocon said.
“I couldn’t feel my confidence; I had to disconnect somehow and go as fast as possible.
“[The car] was moving all around. It’s been moving for two days, really.
“I’m happy that qualifying is behind us. The car floated at high speed.
“There was a lot of movement and I had too many close calls this weekend.
“In FP3, I had a big one. He was very close to Mick last year, and as I did also last year and again in qualifying.
“It’s time to push the limits and it’s normal for you to get close to it but it was pushed a little too far.”
Additional reporting by Filip Cleeren
