Famen: We will return to the battle in good spirits

Alpine is looking forward to the Hungarian Grand Prix with moderate optimism and hopes to earn points at the Hungaroring…

Bruno FamenTeam Principal: “Having summarised the results in the basics, we return to the fight in good spirits, given the positive performance in Spain and the important lessons we learned from the weekend at Silverstone.

We know we need to do better, eliminate persistent reliability issues and improve machine efficiency. In Spain we have shown that we are doing better. The whole team is working on this.

We have an exciting two-race trajectory before the summer break: in Budapest and Spa. These are completely different circuits: in Budapest there are many flowing corners that flow into each other, there we set the car for high downforce, and in high-speed corners and on the long straights of Spa we always look for a compromise for optimum aerodynamic performance.

An incredibly warm weekend awaits us in Budapest. We aim to show good results and earn points.”

Esteban Ocon: “We didn’t perform well at Silverstone. The team made too many mistakes, we were behind from the start. It only got worse in the race when we failed to optimise our strategy and fell back.

I was in Enstone this week and did a lot of simulator work in preparation for Hungary. I have fond memories of the Hungaroring, first of all the victory in 2021. We will aim to return to the fight in better shape than at Silverstone.

The Hungarian Grand Prix will always be a special stage for me, because it was here that I achieved my first victory, which was also the first victory for the Alpine team. This is one of my favourite circuits on the calendar, and I always enjoy competing there.

This is an excellent aerobatic course with high downforce and smooth turns. Overtaking is difficult, there are only real opportunities in the first sector, so it is especially important to perform well in qualifying.

The forecast calls for warm weather, so strategy will play a role in tyre management. I am looking forward to returning to the atmosphere of the Hungarian Grand Prix; we always get a very good welcome in Budapest.”

Pierre Gasly: “The weekend at Silverstone was difficult for me from the start because of the penalty for changing the power unit, but due to problems with the gearbox I couldn’t even start.

The changeable weather created good opportunities that we could have used as in Montreal, but that did not happen. We have to draw conclusions and solve these problems in the future.

Everyone in the team has done their best, also in the last three Grand Prix we are very disappointed that we could not get a result. We know where we have to improve, I am happy with what we have in store. We will give everything before the summer break, which starts in two weeks.

The Hungaroring is a stationary circuit and one of the most fun to drive. It is like karting, where you don’t have time to rest on the straights. You are busy all the way around, it is important to find the optimal rhythm – this is the challenge I like.

“It looks like the weather will be hot and it will be physically difficult to complete the full race distance. We want to reach the qualifying final and earn points this weekend, so we can make up for it before the summer break.”