Esteban Ocon credited Alpine’s work in the simulator after claiming a strong third in practice at the Dutch Grand Prix on Friday.
The Hungarian GP winner would go fastest shortly before the second red flag of the session, caused by Nikita Mazepin’s spin at the Audi chicane, with only the two Ferrari drivers then beating Ocon to finish one-two.
But it was still an impressive showing by the Frenchman, who later revealed the secret to his early performance.
“Definitely the car felt very strong out there,” he told reporters. “It’s probably the closest to a perfect balance that we’ve had so far this year.
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“The work we’ve done in the simulator has helped us, in general, to arrive and be ready with a good pre-event set-up.
“We keep tweaking once we arrived on the real track, but we definitely picked up things on the simulator that would have taken us some time to figure out here.
“So it’s a good job that we worked so hard in the sim and that the guys in the factory managed to put the sim so close to reality.”
Ocon actually has fairly recent experience at Zandvoort, competing in DTM in 2016, and he’s a big fan of the circuit in F1 machinery.
“It’s been a fun Friday and learning this track in a Formula 1 car has been awesome,” he said. “It’s been high grip, a lot of Gs, undulation and taking on the banked corners, which overall has been mega fun.
“It’s been a pleasure to drive, it’s good fun and we hope that it will be the same tomorrow. As a team, it’s been a good day and we look quite competitive, but we know qualifying is when that counts.
“The car handled really well today and I’m sure there’s more for us to find. It’s a small track, narrow in places, and managing traffic in qualifying will be a challenge.”
Indeed, Ocon found that out himself in FP1 in a moment with Lando Norris approaching the penultimate corner which saw the McLaren have to go almost completely off-track.
“The close call with Lando was a little close for comfort, but in the end, nothing happened and we move on,” Ocon, who was formally warned by the stewards, noted.