After an abysmal start to the season without points finishes and poor qualifying results seeing them out in Q1, Pierre Gasly and Alpine are making slow steps in the right direction.
With Gasly and Ocon qualifying in the top 10 for the first time in 2024 last Saturday, Alpine looked very strong throughout the Spanish Grand Prix weekend as they bagged a good chunk of points for the team by finishing in P9 and P10. They had a clear pace advantage over everyone behind the top four squads.
Reflecting on the race, Gasly says it’s important to understand why they were so strong. He only lost out to Sergio Pérez on the last lap for P8. A slow first stop ultimately came back to bite at the end.
The 2020 Italian GP winner also gamely held off Oscar Piastri in the opening stint.
Overall, Gasly was impressed and happy with the performance as Barcelona is the ultimate test of a car. The A524 passed it.
“That was the best race of the year for us as a team. Very strong qualifying yesterday, strong race, managed to battle with one McLaren [Piastri] for some laps and also a Red Bull [Pérez] in the end, so it was good.
“Definitely need to understand why this track seems to suit the package a lot more than the other race tracks, but I’m very pleased with the team and the direction we’re heading.”
He added that was it impossible to have an understanding of the big leap in performance they had in Spain between qualifying and the race. Saturday was the second time in three races he advanced to Q3.
“Straight away after qualifying yesterday, you’re focused on the race, trying to maximise what we had to do today and for sure the next 3-4 days will be important to try to repeat this sort of performance in the coming races.
“It definitely shows at times there is some potential in certain circumstances and conditions which we need to figure out to be able to repeat it.”
“Today was a strong race, strong pace and happy for the team.”
Gasly also stated that Alpine is on track for consistency regarding their performance since the French driver scored points in Monaco and Canada.
He added that he was able to fight for points in Barcelona with pure pace as Monaco is a track where overtaking is virtually impossible, and the race in Canada saw mixed weather conditions, allowing Alpine to profit from errors.
“I still need some consistency, but consistency is also there. The last three races we scored points in Monaco, we scored points in Canada, we scored points again this weekend, so we’re finding that consistency.
“Monaco I knew was a very unique track, Canada was more like a mixed conditions where we know in this type of conditions it kind of evens out the performance of the cars, and this weekend on pure pace we were faster than our competitors.”
Alpine has moved up to P7 in the Constructors’ Championship, one point ahead of Haas.
