Fernando Alonso was preceded by both McLarens in Friday's second practice which gave the Alpine charger cause for concern in the context of the two teams' battle in the Constructors' championship.
Alpine outscored McLaren at its home race in France last weekend which allowed the Enstone squad to seize fourth from McLaren in the team standings.
But on Friday at the Hungaroring, Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo concluded the day respectively P2 and P5 while Alonso was sixth, a performance that has handed the Woking-based outfit an early advantage over the French team.
"Yes, I think they were very fast today," commented Alonso on Friday evening. "But they were really fast also in Ricard so they seem to have found something lately that helped their performance.
"So yeah, we are concerned. But to be honest, we have so many things going on already in our team that we didn’t look that much into those."
While the Spaniard was satisfied overall with his performance on the opening day of running in Budapest, he questioned how useful the day had been given the weather outlook for the remainder of the weekend, with forecasts calling for a soggy Saturday followed by a dry but cool Sunday.
"It has been a tricky day to understand the tyres all three compounds, they behave very differently," said Alonso. "It’s a very hot day.
"We forecast rain tomorrow, maybe a cooler day on Sunday. So not sure how much information or useful information we got today, but the car felt fast so I’m happy to be here."
One year on from his memorable maiden Grand Prix win at the Hungaroring, Esteban Ocon was delighted to tackle once again the tight and twisty track, even if he was left a lowly P13 in the pecking order in FP2.
"It definitely feels good,” he said. "It’s such an awesome track to drive on. I really, really enjoy driving around here.
"So, yeah, I think we had two decent sessions to do some learning, probably the last before it gets dry again, so it’s going to be interesting tomorrow to see how the weather turns out.
"I think it just puts a little bit of spice in the mix and so always interesting. Hopefully we will have a spicier qualifying tomorrow."
Like his teammate, Ocon is keeping a watchful eye on his McLaren rivals.
"At the moment they seem very, very fast for sure in qualifying," he said. "They were fast in France already. Yeah, it will be a long fight for sure.
"It’s harder to pass here than it was in France. So, we need to see if we can catch them back in qualy tomorrow. But yeah, at the moment, they seem very quick."
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