Esteban Ocon’s 2017 Force India car got sold for $86,000, which baffled F1 fans on Reddit as they realize even they can afford an F1 car.
It’s not unusual when F1 cars go up for a sale in an auction. The most iconic cars can go up to millions of dollars in sales. Nigel Mansell, who was gifted a Ferrari and Williams in his career, made a fortune by auctioning them.
Who wouldn’t fancy having an original F1 car standing in their garage or even living room? That’s the basic romanticism behind all the fancy auctions of these pieces of machinery.
However, F1 fans were perplexed when Esteban Ocon’s 2017 Force India got sold for only around $86,000. Yes, the same car which fetched a podium in that year’s Italian Grand Prix, and allowed the Frenchman to be P8 in the drivers’ standings with 87 points.
It’s not even like this F1 car was a lower-tier car and finished last in the competition that it would have been even slightly understandable for such a low price. It literally finished P4 in the constructors’ standings, beating the likes of Williams and Renault.
Congrats to Esteban Ocon for his maiden #F1 GP win in Hungary yesterday. He did a mega job. Pic: Hungary 4 years ago, Force India VJM10, a ‘Team Silverstone’ car; I thought 20-year-old Esteban was very fast (if a tad wild) that year (2017), scoring points 18 times from 20 GPs. pic.twitter.com/BFoEHGqRkB
— Matt Bishop 🏳️🌈 (@TheBishF1) August 2, 2021
Therefore, seeing the stature of the car, it’s surely a steal for the successful bidder. Though the car is not functional, and only a chassis is given. But even the front wing of that car is more expensive than what is being paid for the whole car.
Also read: Kevin Magnussen believes Alpine driver’s joke to the FIA ruined his Canadian GP
F1 Reddit can’t believe how cheap a successful Force India car can be
Once the fans on r/formula1 got to know how cheap Ocon’s 2017 car got sold, a majority of them were surprised. Many even claimed that they could literally afford to buy the car.
“Wait wait ..only 86k? Do you take checks or American Express? That can’t be right,” wrote u/DepartmentSudden5234. I know I was like damn I could technically afford this,” replied u/KickapooPonies.
“This is like 1/10 of what I would’ve thought it would sell for,” wrote another user. There were a few users who thought that the price was not that bad at all, as the team was a midfield team, and nobody would remember this car in 20 years.
But still, an F1 car being sold at an above-average annual wage of someone would be a shame to all the engineering that went into making this art.
Also read: Esteban Ocon recalls low moment as Mercedes reserve driver
