Esteban Ocon: “I’m pleased with today’s Qualifying as it’s a very solid result”

Esteban Ocon says the BWT Alpine F1 Team can be pleased with their efforts during Qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix as they locked out row three of the grid for Sunday’s race.

The Frenchman, the surprise winner of this event twelve months ago, felt it was a solid result at the Hungaroring for a team that has made ‘really good improvements’ to its car across the weekend and gave him a chance of fighting for a place high up the grid.

“I’m pleased with today’s Qualifying as it’s a very solid result, so thanks to the team for their hard work in making some really good improvements over the course of the weekend,” said Ocon.  

“We’ve equalled our best Qualifying result of the year, so we’re definitely satisfied with our performance.”

Ocon says the job on Sunday is to get ahead of McLaren F1 Team’s Lando Norris after the Briton managed to out-qualify them in fourth, as the two teams battle it out for fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship.

“We still have Lando [Norris] ahead who seemed marginally quicker than us today and we’ll see how we fare against the McLarens tomorrow,” he said.  “It’s all to play for in the race, the day where points are scored, as anything can happen as we experienced last year!

“It’s a difficult track to overtake so if we can look after the tyres and manage our strategy well, we should be in a good position to head into the summer with more deserved points.”

“A few others edged us on their final laps in Q3” – Fernando Alonso

Team-mate Fernando Alonso looked as though he had the pace to challenge for a top four place after being strong in both Q1 and Q2, but when it mattered in Q3, he found himself 0.060 seconds back on Ocon and only sixth on the grid.

Alonso was still please with the result as Alpine showed a good turn of speed, and he hopes the team can turn their strong grid spots into a double top ten finish, with the Spaniard aiming for an eighth consecutive top ten finish in 2022.

“We have to be quite pleased with finishing inside the top six in Qualifying,” said Alonso.  “I was competitive in the wet and dry conditions and I felt very strong in Q1 and Q2. Because of this, I was thinking I could have qualified a little higher, but a few others edged us on their final laps in Q3.

“We know it’s difficult to overtake here and we will be lining up on the dirty side of the grid which doesn’t help, but let’s see tomorrow!

“With both cars qualifying in the top six it’s a good result for the team. We will do our best to score as many points as we can tomorrow.”

Fernando Alonso found himself outqualified by team-mate Esteban Ocon by 0.060 seconds – Credit: Octane Photographic Ltd