Ocon had no sleep due to celebrating maiden F1 victory in Hungary

Ocon claimed an unexpected first-ever victory last time out at the Hungaroring as he benefited from two separate incidents on the opening lap of the race caused by Valtteri Bottas and Lance Stroll.

The Alpine driver inherited the lead from Lewis Hamilton and resisted immense pressure from Sebastian Vettel behind to score his first victory.

Reflecting on the events of Hungary ahead of this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix, Ocon said: “Yeah was awesome, couldn’t have happened in a better moment to have the break after. It was excellent.

“Obviously I had long talks with the team as well after the trophy came back to the factory, we could celebrate with the team as well on video conference, obviously that’s how it’s working these days but every single team member took a picture with the trophy and I could see those pictures so that was mega.

“Yes, exactly we did a good celebration with the whole team, still in our bubble respecting the Covid rules and we had a good party in town and then I took the plane with no sleep. It was a pretty tough Monday, but it was totally worth it and if that happens again, I’m happy to do that all over again.”

Despite taking his first victory in the sport, Ocon says his mentality going into races hasn’t changed, although the team itself is ‘hungrier’ for more rostrum appearances.

“It means a lot, it’s a part of the dream coming true,” Ocon added. “What I want to achieve is to become world champion one day and that comes by winning races, I won one which is a great achievement already but you know I want some more.

“Of course it means a lot, it’s been 20 years of work to arrive here and be winning that race but what it means is that we are ready to take opportunities as they come, we’ve done that, last year in Bahrain for example when the opportunities are there. But we still need to work hard, to position ourselves to be regularly fighting for those places.”