Alpine Executive Director Marcin Budkowski is still in disbelief over the Esteban Ocon win in Hungary.
The Hungarian Grand Prix was predicted to be a win for one of the usual suspects, but instead, it became one of the most dramatic races in a long time. The winner was an unlikely driver in Alpine’s Esteban Ocon.
After a bizarre error from Mercedes, Ocon took the lead after the restart. However, everyone thought it was his position to lose. In fact, many predicted one of Sebastian Vettel or Lewis Hamilton would pass him. However, the Frenchman crossed the finish line first, taking his first ever win in Formula 1.
Budkowski is one of those who is still in disbelief about the Ocon win. According to him, he was so tense about the race, and didn’t think Ocon would actually hold Vettel off and win.
“He didn’t do anything wrong at all, he did everything right,” Budkowski said
“All of our strategy tools showed us that Lewis overtook us before the end of the race and won the race. But all these strategy tools are just math. They are statistics. They assume that Lewis will overtake the slower cars, which he did.”
Blips
“There were moments after the pit stop and when he lapped other cars where he felt vulnerable and he could have lost his position. But otherwise, he had everything under control and it well managed his pace. We did him all races asked to save fuel. He had to save fuel while he had to keep Sebastian behind him. He did it absolutely perfectly.
“According to the statistics, we thought Lewis overtook Fernando first, then Seb, and then Esteban. But who knows, maybe Esteban would have kept Lewis behind too? Maybe he wouldn’t have needed Fernando at all,” he concluded.
Either way, Budkowski better get used to it, because Ocon and Alpine won their first-ever races. They will look to build on the momentum in Belgium, where F1 heads next.
Read more: How Toto Wolff made the phone call that saved Esteban Ocon’s F1 career