Ocon: Racing in F1’s midfield “tougher” than at the front

Ocon claimed a sensational maiden win last time out at the Hungaroring, benefitting from the opening lap chaos.

The Alpine driver moved into second after two separate opening lap incidents caused by Valtteri Bottas and Lance Stroll paved the way for Ocon to find himself behind race leader Lewis Hamilton.

Ocon claimed the lead when Mercedes decided to keep Hamilton out on track, rather than switch to dry tyres.

The Frenchman resisted immense pressure from Sebastian Vettel throughout the remainder of the race to take his first victory in any series since 2015, when he won in GP3.

“No, I didn’t feel rusty and I’m sorry to disappoint but it’s easier to fight at the front like we did now, to manage the opponents that are behind, than to fight in the midfield how we are doing. This is much harder. So, you know, we had good training the whole time. 

“The whole time in Formula 1 I had pretty good training. The fight in the midfield is a lot tougher than what’s happening in the front. It was hard with Seb putting a lot of pressure, he gave me a hard time but you know, when you are ahead, you have clean air. You are the one who is dictating the pace on such a track. 

“And yeah, in the end we just made everything perfect, from the start, which was a difficult decision, because Lewis normally doesn’t take wrong decisions – never, I’ve never seen him taking a wrong decision, so to box when you are P2 on the road, it’s a bit heart-breaking at first, but glad that we did it because we were a long way ahead and yeah, the guys did a great pit stop as well. 

“I heard you say that Sebastian had a slow stop, that’s probably what made the difference because they would probably have undercut us on that, so yeah, the guys in the garage again, top job by them.”

Alpine sits fifth in the constructors’ championship, nine points ahead of AlphaTauri.