Esteban Ocon condemned Alpine’s decision not to run at the end of Q1 in Formula 1’s Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying as “not good enough” after both cars were eliminated.
Despite the emergence of further rain prior to a Q1 red flag produced by Sergio Perez’s slip into the wall at Turn 8, all teams apart from Alpine returned to the circuit in an effort to beat the drop zone.
It became evident that the circuit was improving at the very end of the session, by which time it was too late for Alpine to get either driver out on track as they plummeted towards the bottom five.
Ocon and Pierre Gasly landed at the back of the provisional grid for Sunday’s grand prix, having initially looked moderately safe while ensconced within the midfield, and the former contended that Alpine had missed a golden opportunity to make a play for the middle of the grid at the Hungaroring.
“We were 10th when we were on track, and we thought we were going to be 17th, 18th, 16th maybe at best this session, so we were going all in obviously for Q1,” Ocon explained.
“But we were 10th and 12th, so it was better than what we were expecting. We’ve done the right job up until now, but we were not out there when the conditions were at best.
Esteban Ocon, Alpine A524
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
“And it’s been two weekends in a row that we do these strategy mistakes. Three years ago, we were doing the right ones.
“Today, I don’t know what we do wrong, but it’s clearly not good enough, especially with the level of car performance that we have. We need to be doing things perfectly and today, we were going to be able to go through to Q2.”
Team boss Bruno Famin admitted the team had made a “big mistake”
“What happened is that we had an interesting opportunity, and we made a big mistake,” said Famin. “We made a wrong evaluation of the situation. We thought the track, which was damp will not dry enough to improve the lap time, as we were not too bad, ready to go for Q2.
“I think we wanted to preserve the set of new tyres. And in focusing on that, we just forgot the big picture. The big picture was to go ain Q2 and then, yeah, we made a mistake.
“We had one minute to react between the first sector improvement and the possibility to go out and we didn’t use it, and yeah, big mistake. We have to learn from that, to change our process, maybe decision, but just to make sure that this kind of big mistake cannot happen again.”
He added: “The last minute we understood what was going to happen. But, yeah, you realise you made the mistake. There is nothing to do. Then let’s fight let’s fight tomorrow. We know that it’s not going to be easy, but I think we need to react as a team, to be strong, to learn, to do our best, to have really a good race in Spa, to finish on a good note before the summer break.”
Ocon added that “the team made the call for both cars to not go out and to save the last set [of soft tyres] that we had for Q2”.
He also suggested that, amid the light rain, the effect of DRS being disabled was in the minds of Alpine’s strategists; asked if the drivers were able to make their own choice, Ocon explained that the call from the team to stay in the garage was firm.
“The DRS was disabled, so that’s probably one of the topics that put the team a little bit out of thinking we are going to go out and improve,” he said.
“But, if you think about it, we are doing [1m]17.5 in P3. There was going to be room for improvement even if the DRS was disabled.
Esteban Ocon, Alpine F1 Team
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
“I tried to remove the screen once I put it back in because then I need to see the cars what they are doing on track.
“The call was strict and we didn’t go out, so I trusted the team. But probably things need to be different for the future. As a strategy we have in place, an improving track will always be a team call and a track getting worse will always be a driver call.
“Obviously we have the crossover lap time so it’s quite clear what tyres are best, what conditions the track is running in.
“So that’s something we’ve put in since 2020 and it’s been working every time since. But today hasn’t worked – I think 12th or 13th would have been possible.”
Additional reporting by Ben Hunt
