“I knew that every lap I could hold him”– Fernando Alonso used TV screens to hold Lewis Hamilton in the epic battle at Hungaroring.
Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton had an epic battle in Hungaroring. The Spaniard gave one of his career best defensive displays and automatically played a decisive role in Esteban Ocon’s win.
Now, it has been revealed that the Spaniard relied on the big screens at the circuit to predict the positioning of Hamilton to block him for approximately 10 laps.
“On the fight today, no the team didn’t tell me anything, but I knew more or less what the situation of the race was,” said Alonso after the race.
“I was looking at the big screens. I knew Esteban and Vettel were fighting, they were two corners in front of us and with 20 laps to the end and with Lewis coming two or three seconds faster, that was enough to win the race probably.”
“So I knew that every lap I could hold him behind that was gold for Esteban’s win.”
I thought would not hold him more than 1-2 laps.
Though Alonso also shared that there were shreds of doubts before competing against Hamilton, who was gaining massively against Ocon once he reached P5 in the table.
“I honestly felt that I could not hold him more than one or two laps but on the last couple of corners, he seemed to struggle a little bit to follow me and then it was enough to open a gap on the straight and defend.”
“I think he learned a couple of different lines in the last three corners after 10 laps behind me and he was able to pass Carlos just in one lap applying those new lines, so that was it.”
After Alonso, Hamilton was also able to overtake Carlos Sainz, but after that, it was too late to gain against Sebastian Vettel (who was stripped from his P2 podium) and Ocon, giving the Frenchman his maiden Grand Prix win.
