Manor racing director Dave Ryan has described Esteban Ocon as "brilliant" having been impressed with the Frenchman in his first two races.

Ocon replaced Rio Haryanto over the summer, with Mercedes keen to see what the 19-year-old could do alongside fellow young driver Pascal Wehrlein. Ocon qualified 18th at Spa-Francorchamps and finished 16th in the race, but missed out in qualifying at Monza as an electrical problem stopped him for the second time in the weekend.

“Clearly we let Esteban down in Monza," Ryan said. "The kid’s brilliant. The kid for sure is going to be very, very good - he is already very, very good - but like anything until we have a car under him that he can demonstrate his abilities then we’ve got to wait and see, but he’s not put a foot wrong since he’s been with us.”

With Pascal Wehrlein failing to finish in Monza due to an oil leak when running competitively, Ryan admits Manor missed an opportunity for a strong result in Italy.

“Absolutely. Monza was our worst weekend for reliability for some time... well, period. To have Esteban stop with the same problem twice is not acceptable, is it? So we need to get on top of that, stop it now and look forward to the rest of the season really.

“Spa was a good race, we did well at Spa. Pascal had a clean run and his qualifying performances have been superb, so Spa was a good race for him, a very good race. Monza was a missed opportunity, for sure."

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Scene at the Italian Grand Prix

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