The last Spanish Grand Prix was a bittersweet weekend for Alpine. The French team began to show signs of its good performance during the free practice sessions. Both drivers were commenting that the performance of the A523 was very good, and the two Frenchmen felt comfortable with the different stints on different types of tyres that they tested throughout the sessions on Friday and Saturday.
On Saturday, Gasly was very strong for qualifying, however, two penalties due to blocking Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz made him lose 6 positions on the starting grid. On the other hand, Esteban Ocon also felt quite good at the wheel of his Alpine, qualifying in P7 for Sunday’s race, in addition to being promoted to P6 after his teammate’s penalty. Everything looked like it was going to be a race in which the French team was going to fight to be the best of the rest and even fight with the two Aston Martin drivers, Lance Stroll and the two-time world champion, Fernando Alonso. It was not so.
During the race, the Alpine had a big drop off performance compared to the previous two days. Esteban Ocon finished in P8, 69 seconds behind the leader, while Gasly barely managed to stay inside the points, finishing in P10 but 73 seconds behind the race winner.
The teams’ tyre strategies were essential for a good result during Sunday’s race. Pirelli had already foreseen that the Spanish Grand Prix was going to be a two-stop race, which was correct, even for some it was a three-stop race. In the case of the driver of car number 10, Gasly started the race with used soft tyres, which served him for the first 19 laps of the competition, later he pitted for a set of new medium tyres, and finally, the French driver raced on a fresh set of hard tyres from lap 39 to the finish.
Ocon had a very similar strategy to the one of his teammate. The one-time GP winner, Esteban Ocon, started the Spanish GP on a set of used soft tyres, on lap 13 he switched to a set of new medium tyres, while his last stint started on lap 35 on a set of new hard tyres.
Photo Credit: BWT Alpine F1 Team
One of the most important and interesting fights of the entire race was the one between Esteban Ocon and his former teammate, Fernando Alonso. “It was my only chance to try and keep him behind. He was too fast so I had to defend quite hard, but I backed off because I thought I would not be able to do it,” the 2021 Hungarian GP winner stated.
“For two laps I managed to keep in front but the pace we had today compared to qualifying had dropped off significantly and we were not as fast as Saturday as the good group in front, and that’s what we need to work on and understand.
“It was good to score points but coming from such a good place on Saturday in qualifying, there’s a little bit of a mixed feeling about this race because the pace was a lot better yesterday than it was today [Sunday].
“We struggled a little bit more with the car and being able to lean on the tyres. I think the degradation was quite high and it was tricky to get the tyres under control and being able to push. So most of the race was about managing,” Ocon stated.
Despite the fact that Ocon did not finish inside the top 5 last weekend, he has still commented that they have been very positive races for the French team in the constructors’ championship, in addition to the fact that he has also managed to stand on the podium in Monaco.
“What we have to remember from the last two weeks is that I’ve scored 19 points in two races.
“This is a weekend we can be extremely proud of, and we made a huge step forward in terms of car pace.”
The French driver remains ninth in the drivers’ championship, behind the Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari and Aston Martin drivers. For its part, the French team is fifth in the constructors’ championship behind the same 4 teams. We’ll see what they can do in a week during the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal.
