31/07/2022
NEWS STORY
BWT Alpine F1 Team enters the Formula 1 summer break in fourth place in the Constructors' Championship after scoring six points from today's Hungarian Grand Prix with Fernando Alonso eighth and Esteban Ocon ninth place at the Hungaroring.
It was a hard-fought 70-lap race in Budapest with both drivers executing a one-stop Medium to Hard strategy. After a late Virtual Safety Car, Esteban had to battle on the final lap to keep behind Sebastian Vettel, who he was able to pip by 0.1secs at the chequered flag.
Both drivers started on Medium tyres and lost a couple of positions at the start. By lap 12, Esteban held eighth and Fernando ninth. Fernando made his sole pit-stop on lap 22 for Hards with Esteban in two laps later for his pit-stop for the same compound.
From there, patience was the key in making the one-stop work to the flag. With Fernando showing strong pace, the team swapped positions on lap 41 with Fernando passing Esteban into Turn 1. Both drivers managed their second stints well to finish eighth and ninth at the end of the race.
Esteban Ocon: "We can be happy to score points with both cars today and that's always a positive especially as we go into the season break. I don't think we quite maximised our potential during the race and we'll discuss as a team what we can do to improve. The one-stop was challenging today but we made it work to score points and I had to defend hard from Seb [Vettel] on the last lap. Overall, we're still heading into the break in fourth in the Constructors' Championship and we'll be hungry to extend our lead in a few weeks' time. I'm proud of the team for the improvements in performance over the last couple of months and we'll aim to continue this upwards trajectory when the season returns after the well-deserved rest."
Fernando Alonso: "It was hard racing today and we are pleased to come away with a double points finish. We managed to avoid cars at a busy Turn 1 on lap one and we lost some positions. After that, we concentrated mostly on our race pace and we wanted to make the one-stop strategy work on the Hard tyres. We didn't have two Medium compounds to choose from for the race and instead we maximised our tyre choice for Saturday's Qualifying. Our pace yesterday made us feel quite optimistic for today and we were anticipating a better result. All in all, we are still ahead of McLaren heading into the summer break, so it's a strong team result. We just need to keep scoring points like we did today and hopefully this consistency will be our strength in the battle for fourth position in the Constructors."
Otmar Szafnauer, Team Principal: "After scoring six points from today's Hungarian Grand Prix, the team remains in fourth place in the Constructors' Championship as we head into the summer break. That in itself is a great achievement and gives us a real focus to push on and attack the remainder of the year when we head to Belgium next month. It was a tricky race for us today with varying strategies in place across the field. We opted for a one-stop with both cars, which meant we had to be quite careful across both stints on the Medium and Hard tyres to ensure we could reach the chequered flag with sufficient pace in hand. We did a good job in the end to hold off some others behind on two-stops who were coming on strong with fresher tyres. As always, we'll review our race to see what we can improve for next time. We'll be ready to continue the enjoyable fight in the championship with our competitors when racing returns in late August. For now, after a busy season so far, the entire team deserves the break and we'll certainly recharge our energy ready for the season resumption."
Check out our Sunday gallery from the Hungaroring here.