Strategy tools showed Hamilton win: 'But then he came across Alonso'

Esteban Ocon put in a great performance in Hungary by grabbing his first win in Formula 1. The Frenchman stayed ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, which surprised Marcin Budkowski considerably.

Ocon quickly took the lead after the restart due to a misjudgment by Mercedes. However, it did not mean Alpine was already assuming victory. "Then there are cars behind, like Lewis, like Max," Budkowski told Autosport.com. "Much quicker cars, fantastic drivers. We didn’t know about Max’s damage, or we didn’t realise the extent of the damage on the front of his car."

Moreover, for a long time, it looked like Hamilton would come back. "All of the strategy tools were showing us that Lewis would come past before the end of the race and he would win the race. But the strategy tools are maths, they’re statistics. They assume that Lewis is going to pass slower cars, and he did. But then he came across Fernando (Alonso, red.)."

The Spaniard helped his teammate excellently by keeping Hamilton behind him for a long time, causing the Englishman to miss time at the end of the race to drive towards first position.