Alonso bracing for long race with 'out of position' cars

Fernando Alonso expects a busy start to his Hungarian Grand Prix followed by a long race, with traffic in front and several out of position cars behind.

Alonso and teammate Esteban Ocon ensured Alpine's sixth double top-ten qualifying result of the season on Saturday, with the pair clocking in respectively P6 and P5.

The Spaniard says he felt competitive in the wet in FP3 and later on in the dry in Q1 and Q2, which led him to believe that he could have qualified a little higher.

Alonso thought he'd have the measure of both Mercedes drivers in qualifying an admitted to being very surprised by George Russell's remarkable effort in Q3 that earned the Briton his maiden pole in F1.

"I just found out now because on the radio I didn’t understand who was on pole," he said right after qualifying. "I’m surprised for sure [but] happy for him.

"[It was] unexpected because Ferrari looked very strong and Max as well so Mercedes were struggling a little bit.

"We were thinking we could be in front of them, in fact we are in front of Lewis, so to see him in pole position, it has to be a great lap. I am looking forward to watching it."

Alonso was a bit frustrated to lost out to Ocon.

"I've been significantly faster probably the whole weekend," he said. "My car was performing mega this weekend, P2 today in wet conditions and things like that, but now in qualifying, yeah, in Q3, they did a better job.

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Alpine's drivers will resume on Sunday their battle with their McLaren counterparts as the two teams continue to fight for fourth in the Constructors' championship.

Lando Norris will launch his race from P4 on the grid, just ahead of the two Alpine, but Alonso reckons the Enstone cars can overhaul their rival, but they'll also need to contend with some fast movers behind, such as Hamilton and Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez.

"I think tomorrow is going to be a long race, [with] some traffic in front of us that maybe we are a little bit faster than.

"There are some very fast cars behind us – Verstappen, Perez and Lewis, if he doesn’t pass us at the start – so it is going to be an interesting race because there are a couple of cars out of position."

Ocon, who will lead Alpine's charge at the start, believes anything can happen on Sunday afternoon, as the Frenchman experienced to his benefit in last year's race at the Hungaroring which he won.

"We still have Lando ahead who seemed marginally quicker than us today and we’ll see how we fare against the McLarens," he said.

"It's all to play for in the race, the day where points are scored, as anything can happen as we experienced last year!

"It’s a difficult track to overtake so if we can look after the tyres and manage our strategy well, we should be in a good position to head into the summer with more deserved points."

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