'It's easier to fight at the front than to fight in the midfield'

Esteban Ocon took his first victory at the Hungarian Grand Prix. He took advantage of the chaos in the opening lap and managed to keep Sebastian Vettel behind him throughout the race.

According to the Alpine driver, the fight in midfield is "tougher" than at the front. “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", Ocon told Crash.net.

Pit stops made the difference

A misjudgement by Hamilton left him the only one on the grid, while the rest went into the pit lane for new tyres. "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", said Ocon. Alpine's victory and Fernando Alonso's points puts them in fifth place in the constructors' championship.