F1
For Pierre Gasly, Alpine “maximized potential” despite a nightmare weekend
© Florent Gooden / DPPI
Difficult to find things to say about Alpine at the end of this Bahrain Grand Prix, at the end of a simply abysmal weekend for the French team. After failed qualifying, where the two French single-seaters qualified on the last row – a first since the 2016 European GP for the team based in enstone – the racing pace of theAlpine A524 was not really better than the pace on a flying lap.
Esteban Ocon et Pierre Gasly crossed the finish line in 17th and 18th places, far, far from the points. An endless stoppage of Valtteri Bottas and a track exit of Logan sargeant saved the Blues from a real Bérézina in Bahrain and a finish in last positions… “Unfortunately, it reflects a little on this weekend's performance, declared Pierre Gasly at the microphone of Canal+ after an anonymous race. We ran a good race, we tried different things in terms of strategy. I think we maximized the potential. »
Alpine in search of performance
In addition to the glaring lack of performance, the execution of the race was far from perfect. Pierre Gasly particularly regrets pit stops that are still too long for the French team. “ We have the pit stops to improve, and unfortunately we know that it's something we need to work on, underlines the Norman. Today it cost me ten seconds, we know that it wouldn't have changed our place, it wouldn't have given us any points. But we know there is work, investigations, I know that the team works a lot on this and in the future it will be important when we get closer to points. For the rest, the race was well executed, we just lacked performance. »
Heading now for Saudi Arabia next weekend for the second stage of the 2024 championship where again, Alpine expected to suffer at the back of the pack. With the first developments on the A524 planned for Japan or China in April, the A arrow should not experience a burst of performance in Jeddah.
" We are going to work. We will not have any developments in Saudi Arabia. You have to learn a lot from this new car, there are things to refine, explains Pierre Gasly. It's certain that the car, even if we tried to optimize it, there are still things in terms of adjustments that we will be able to do next week. Afterwards, there will be no revolution and we will have to continue working step by step. »
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Dorian Grangier
A young journalist nostalgic for the motorsport of yesteryear. Raised on the exploits of Sébastien Loeb and Fernando Alonso.
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Eric Stevens
03/03/2024 at 04:42 a.m.
poor Pierre Gasly, a real talent who can certainly thank alpine to still be present in F1, but who is wasting his time in a team that is not at his level. not at the level of F1 by the way! it's time to stop making a fool of ourselves in front of the whole world and just sell R5s, they know how to do that
Yves-Henri RANDIER
03/03/2024 at 03:16 a.m.
Any news on the very recent resignations of the Englishman Matt HARMAN and the South African Dirk DE BEER, somewhat responsible for the brilliant A524... unless Pat FRY "committed" the A524 before his departure for Williams?