Pierre Gasly had the bad days ahead at the finish of the United States Grand Prix, a race in which nothing went as planned for the French driver.
The weekend of the United States Grand Prix looked promising for Pierre Gasly with an excellent sixth position on the starting grid. Its race did not go as planned, however, and Alpine F1 once again failed to fully realize its potential.
Between big strategic errors, poor pace on the hard tires and a costly penalty, the French driver ultimately finished outside the points.
A good start, but a total disappointment
Pierre Gasly quickly expressed his frustration after the race, highlighting the multiple errors that prevented the team from capitalizing on a successful qualification.
“It wasn’t good enough, we have to do better. Qualifying was very good, but today we were too slow and too rough, he admitted. We will have to do better as a team. We didn’t exploit the pace of the car, we didn’t manage to warm up the hard tyres.”
Although he managed to maintain his position at the start, Gasly quickly became trapped in traffic after losing a place, compromising his race.
“There are a lot of things that haven’t been good enough to fight forhe added. It’s a shame because I get a good start, I keep my place and then I give that place back and I find myself in traffic. Unfortunately, there were a lot of things we weren’t good enough at.”
A strategy poorly managed by Alpine
In addition to the poor pace in the race, Alpine also made strategic errors, notably during a long pit stop which caused Gasly to lose precious seconds. In addition, a penalty increased the bill for the French team, depriving them of an opportunity to score important points.
Gasly did not hesitate to express his disappointment with the overall management of the race, emphasizing that the team absolutely had to do better.
Esteban Ocon: a race compromised from the start
For his part, Esteban Ocon had an equally difficult race, but for different reasons. Victim of a spin from the start due to contact with Alex Albon, the French driver saw his hopes of achieving a good performance disappear in the first laps.
“I ended up going the wrong way initially, but I’m not sure exactly what happened” he explained.
Despite racing at the back of the grid, Ocon still managed to grab a point by setting the fastest lap in the race, thus depriving Williams of a double championship reward.
“It was our only objective, to recover the fastest lap to prevent Franco from scoring two points” Ocon added.
A high-tension end to the season for Alpine
With five races remaining on the 2024 F1 calendar, Alpine drivers, and in particular Esteban Ocon, who will join Haas next season, will be hoping that improvements to the A524 can allow them to finish the season on a better note.
Ocon is optimistic: “The upgrades worked well, especially in qualifying, and I hope we can fully exploit them for the final races.”
Despite the disappointments of the Grand Prix, Alpine must now focus on the rest of the season, with the aim of turning things around and making the most of their new technical improvements.
