While the Tifosi were cheering on their beloved Ferrari at this week’s Italian Grand Prix, fans of Alpine were left to ponder a terrible racing for the Enstone-based squad.
With an engine on a track mostly made up of straights, the Alpines finished far away from the points. Pierre Gasly, who was on the podium in Zandvoort, finished 15th, and Esteban Ocon DNF’d on lap 39. Both cars got knocked out in Q1, too.
Photo Credit: BWT Alpine F1 Team
When Gasly spoke about his weekend post-race, he got straight to the point about just how bad things were.
“It’s been super-painful. I don’t think we have ever had such a lack of competitiveness compared to our rivals.
“We knew straight away from the start of the season that [Monza] will be a painful one, but it was clearly very difficult out there. We saw it yesterday, we knew there will not be any magic overnight, but it’s just pretty painful from inside the cockpit.”
When noticing the full extent of their lack of speed in the race, Gasly made an early second pitstop to try and gain some ground on the likes of Zhou and Lawson, but ultimately the gamble failed.
“When you’re lacking so much performance like that you’ve just got to gamble.”
Even though the engine was the main problem, that wasn’t the only cause of Alpine’s dreadful performance.
“We knew it was always going to be difficult, but I think the most important is really to understand and quantify where is that drop of performance coming from and come back next year with a stronger package. We knew it’s a very power sensitive track, but it’s the whole package which has got to be better for this track.”
Photo Credit: BWT Alpine F1 Team
Although Esteban Ocon DNF’d, he was far less negative. He started his career with Manor, a team which became defunct after his rookie season. The team was much further off the pace than Alpine were at Monza, and the Frenchman stated that’s why this wasn’t his worst weekend in F1 s
“I’ve had worse [weekends] in the past, with my first team, especially, and further off the pace. It’s not because we have a bad weekend we’re going to give up. There’s plenty from us more to come.”
