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Ocon: Race in the F1 midfield “harder” than at the top | F1


Ocon: Race in the F1 midfield “harder” than at the top |  F1

Ocon celebrated a sensational first victory last time at the Hungaroring and benefited from the chaos on the first lap.

The Alpine rider moved up to second after two separate first lap incidents caused by Valtteri Bottas and Lance Stroll, paving the way for Ocon to find himself behind leading Lewis Hamilton.

Ocon took the lead when Mercedes decided to keep Hamilton on the track instead of switching to dry tires.

The Frenchman withstood the immense pressure of Sebastian Vettel for the remainder of the race to take his first win in a series since 2015 when he won in GP3.

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“No, I didn’t feel rusty and I’m sorry to have to disappoint, but it’s easier to fight like us now, to manage the opponents who are behind, than to fight in midfield like we do. It’s much more difficult. So, you know, we’ve had a good workout all along.

“I had pretty good training the whole time in Formula 1. The fight in midfield is much tougher than what’s happening up front. It was hard that Seb put a lot of pressure on, he made it hard on me, but you know when you’re up front you have clean air. You are the one who sets the pace on such a route.

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“And yes, in the end we just did everything perfectly, right from the start, which was a difficult decision because Lewis doesn’t usually make the wrong decisions – never, I’ve never seen him make wrong decisions, so when to box you’re P2 on the road, it’s a bit heartbreaking at first, but glad we made it because we were way ahead and yes, the guys made a great pit stop too.

“I heard you say that Sebastian had a slow stop, that probably made the difference because they would have probably undercut us, so yeah, the guys in the garage again, top job from them.”

Alpine is fifth in the constructors’ championship, nine points ahead of AlphaTauri.

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