Pierre Gasly started the Japanese Grand Prix in P17. He has not being able to make it out of Q1 in qualifying this season to date. He finished 16th as the chequered flag was waved.
The race was quickly red flagged after the collision between Albon and Ricciardo in lap one at turn three. The soft compound tyres that Gasly started on gave him an upper hand by allowing him to get past Stroll, who also started of the soft compound, placing him P14.
During the red flag, Alpine decided to change their strategy by switching from the soft compound tyres to the hards. Things were looking decent for the Alpine driver during the race restart as he got past Ocon but it soon turned upside down when he was squeezed between Tsunoda and Ocon.
The sandwich led to contact with his teammate and caused the French driver to pick up substantial damage on his floor.
This incident affected the Alpine driver’s performance drastically at the Japanese Grand Prix, basically becoming a spectator as he ran alone at the back due to the significant performance loss.
“We had an amazing first start and managed to move up three positions.
“Second start was very good, managed to pass Esteban and go alongside Yuki, and then, unfortunately, I got sandwiched with Yuki turning left [and] Esteban turning right and unfortunately, he touched me and took the left side of my floor off the car.
“So I was down, the team thinks, a bit less than 40 points of downforce. So after that, it was pretty much game over. I was trying to stay out there hoping for another red flag to change it.
“But that was it, pretty much. Just a racing incident, but today it cost us a lot, and it was a very long, very difficult afternoon.”
Despite the disastrous race, there were some things that brought hope for Gasly as Alpine delivered their first set of upgrades of 2024, which worked as expected.
The upgrades are related to the front wing and weight reduction as Alpine has been suffering from weight issues since the start of the season which has affected the performance of the team.
“On the positive side, we had the first set of upgrades, which apparently delivered what we expected, so that was very positive, and we just need to crack on these new parts and upgrades on the car.
“I know the team is working really hard, and obviously today is not very representative to what we had and there was more to do, but still overall, we know we’re still too slow, and we’re going to find more performance.
“And I know they’re working really hard on it and they managed to get these first upgrades this weekend, and now we need to get the next set as soon as possible.”
The 28-year-old expressed that Alpine need to continuosly bring updates, even if they are small ones. The car is fundamentally not up to the standard it should be for a team with such history in F1, and Gasly pulled no punches by saying their concept has been a failure.
“I think [we can] still improve on this for now as this sort of car concept doesn’t deliver what we expected.
“In the meantime, everything we can chip away every single weekend will get us closer to potentially a points finish at some point.
“So at the minute, we’re clearly at the back of that sort of like second league. But every single tenth we can get as soon as possible will make a difference at the end of the year.”
Ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix next weekend, Alpine is last in the Constructors’ Championship.
