Alpine confirms its return to form with a double top 10 in Austria

Alpine confirms. After a promising weekend in Spain, the French team maintained its good level of performance in Austria with a double accession to SQ3, at the end of qualifying counting for the Sprint race. Since the start of testing, the official structure of the Renault Group has displayed a certain competitiveness to place its cars in the first part of the table. If the points on Saturday will be difficult to access, it remains very interesting for Sunday.

After a single positive free practice session, Alpine therefore successfully qualified for the Sprint race. Both cars showed good speed to pass SQ1 and SQ2. In the final phase – SQ3 – a lot had to be asked of the A524 to find the best structures on the board. Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly nevertheless managed to take eighth and ninth positions, with the absence of a time from a Ferrari.

Only the top 8 scores points in the Sprint, so Alpine is counting on a few racing hazards to bring back one or two points, because the team is aware that in a fair game, fighting against Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes will be complicated. Nevertheless, this good pace displayed opens up interesting prospects for the race on Sunday.

“I’m happy to have reached SQ3 today and to start eighth tomorrow”explains Esteban Ocon. “The team was in the top ten again in qualifying, so that’s another good performance. SQ3 was far from easy as we were at the back of the queue coming out of the pits. We probably had a little success like Charles [Leclerc] crossed the line after the checkerboard, thus gaining us a place. The positive point, however, is the fact that we performed well and are well placed for the Sprint. We still have work to do and things to figure out, but it’s nice to be moving in the right direction. “

“The Sprint Qualifying was positive, with both of the team’s cars in SQ3”continues Pierre Gasly. “We managed SQ1 and SQ2 well, showing good speed to reach the following sessions. On the other hand, we clearly did not maximise SQ3. It was complicated and I was not really able to do an attacking lap. These are things that we will analyse as we want to optimise and get the most out of each session. Despite this, we still had good pace today, which is nice, and we are again in the top ten. The cars in front of us are fast and only the top eight will score points tomorrow in the Sprint. It will not be easy to take any, but we will give it our all and see what we can get.”