The Frenchman was in the spotlight for his aggressiveness at the start against Alonso
He thinks that Alpine did not choose the most optimal strategy by going for the hard tire
Esteban Ocon downplays his on-track fight with Fernando Alonso in Hungary. The Frenchman tried to defend against his teammate at the start, but he feels it’s racing after all. Despite what happened, he is happy with the overall result and to have scored points for Alpine with both cars.
Ocon was in the spotlight at the Hungaroring for his aggressive defense against Alonso to the output. The Spaniard told the radio that I had never seen anything like thisbut the Frenchman played it down, as he thinks that’s how the race goes.
Also, laps later, when he came out of the pits, he remembers he was on a cold tire and tried to defend himself as much as possible from all his rivals, not necessarily his teammate.
“I guess it’s racing. We put ourselves in a difficult position when the stop was delayed, we entered a little later. The times with the new tire were good and we should have started with a good lead. After the pit stop I tried to defend myself, not necessarily from Fernando, but from everyone behind me,” Ocon commented in remarks published by Dutch web portal Racing News 365.
“Of course, with a hard tire at very low temperatures, it was very difficult to defend myself. For this reason, it was difficult to make it work. In general, it was a competition weekend, although it doesn’t fully reflect it. We add good points before the summer break and it’s always positive,” he added.
On the other hand, Ocon believes that Alpine did not choose the right strategy for Hungary. Those at Enstone made just one stop, starting with the middle tire and reaching the end with a tough guy who has generated a lot of headaches. The key to his idea was to avoid the 20 seconds and extra traffic of a second stop and in part it worked as both drivers scored points.
“We need a long time to run the hard tire and be quick. I struggled with traction and rear end compared to other cars. The strategy probably wasn’t the best and neither were the calls to enter the pits. It could have been a different story with another idea, but in the end we scored points with both cars,” Ocon said in conclusion.
If you want to read more news like this, visit our Flipboard