Esteban Ocon says Alpine is “looking promising” at the Hungaroring following the first day of free practice.
Ocon ended the second practice outing in fifth place, while team-mate Pierre Gasly reached the top three, finishing behind only Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris.
Alpine has scored just one point at the last two races and fell to sixth in the Constructors’ Championship following the British Grand Prix.
At Silverstone, both Ocon and Gasly failed to see the chequered flag while rivals McLaren secured a strong haul of points, with Norris and Oscar Piasatri finishing second and fourth respectively.
Ocon is hopeful that Alpine will be able to perform at a higher level this weekend in Budapest, insisting there is even more pace to come from the car.
“I think it’s very close, it’s very exciting,” he said. “We have got quite some pace to unlock for tomorrow.
“It’s looking promising, it’s only Friday, obviously. We’re going to need to push to be there tomorrow.
“So far, I think we were expecting that this track would suit our car quite well. So far it did, so we will see tomorrow where we are.
A major change in place for the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend is fewer tyre sets for each team.
Instead of 13 sets, all drivers have just 11 sets to contest the weekend with, while there are prefixed compounds allocated to each qualifying segment.
Ocon states that the new rule is leading to fewer on-track laps.
“I think it’s the same for everyone in the end, no one can really prepare at [their] best to these conditions and these tyres,” he said.
“We don’t have enough of them to practice in FP3. We’re going to try and maximise the learning as early as we can and hopefully get some good Q1 and Q2 [pace] and push flat out in Q3.”
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