30 July 2022

BWT Alpine F1 Team qualified with Esteban Ocon fifth and Fernando sixth – split by just 0.060secs – after a thrilling Saturday Qualifying at the Hungaroring for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

 

It’s the team’s sixth double Q3 effort of the 2022 season with Fernando making his tenth top ten appearance of the year and sixth Q3 session in a row.

Conditions were mixed in Budapest today with Free Practice 3 taking place in the wet with Fernando ending the session sixth and Esteban thirteenth on Intermediate tyres. But the skies cleared for Qualifying with the 4.381km Hungaroring completely dry.

 

Both drivers breezed through Q1 with Fernando sixth and Esteban ninth. In Q2, Fernando set a stellar lap-time – a 1min 17.904secs – to sit in second place, which proved good enough to remain in the garage for the remainder of the session and save a set of Softs for Q3. Esteban improved on his second run to a 1min 18.216secs to progress to Q3 for the sixth time of the season in ninth.

 

Esteban’s first run in Q3 on a used set of Softs, saw him slot into eighth with Fernando fifth on his first of two new sets. Esteban improved his time to a 1min 18.018secs to jump to fifth and Fernando found a small improvement on his set to finish narrowly behind Esteban in sixth.

 

Tomorrow’s 70-lap race begins at 15:00pm local time.

 

Esteban Ocon, P5, 1:18.018: “I’m pleased with today’s Qualifying as it’s a very solid result, so thanks to the team for their hard work in making some really good improvements over the course of the weekend. We’ve equalled our best Qualifying result of the year, so we’re definitely satisfied with our performance. We still have Lando [Norris] ahead who seemed marginally quicker than us today and we’ll see how we fare against the McLarens tomorrow. It’s all to play for in the race, the day where points are scored, as anything can happen as we experienced last year! It’s a difficult track to overtake so if we can look after the tyres and manage our strategy well, we should be in a good position to head into the summer with more deserved points.”

 

Fernando Alonso, P6, 1:18.078: “We have to be quite pleased with finishing inside the top six in Qualifying. I was competitive in the wet and dry conditions and I felt very strong in Q1 and Q2. Because of this, I was thinking I could have qualified a little higher, but a few others edged us on their final laps in Q3. We know it’s difficult to overtake here and we will be lining up on the dirty side of the grid which doesn’t help, but let’s see tomorrow! With both cars qualifying in the top six it’s a good result for the team. We will do our best to score as many points as we can tomorrow.”

 

Alan Permane, Sporting Director: “We’re happy with our Qualifying effort today with both cars inside the top six and in a great position to be competitive for tomorrow’s race. We’ve built up our weekend steadily and made the right improvements when we’ve needed to, and that’s reflected in today’s result. The aim for the race is to outscore our rivals and have both our cars inside the points. We will, of course, assess the options on strategy to maximise our potential in the race to ensure we bring home strong points.”