A tough Friday for Alpine in Baku
Alpine experienced two difficult free practice sessions this Friday in Baku. The French team will have to find solutions to do better on Saturday than Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon's 18th and 19th places in FP2.
3 laps completed, no lap time recorded… Esteban Ocon’s first Free Practice session lasted only 20 minutes this Friday in Azerbaijan. The French driver, who is competing in his 100th Grand Prix with Alpine this weekend, suffered from an engine power issue. The problem was resolved for FP2, and the driver from Normandy was able to complete 23 laps in this second session, accumulating data.
« We had some problems during Free Practice 1 and had to make up for it during Free Practice 2 this afternoon because we missed valuable track time. », Ocon noted. « As a result, the second session was very busy for us and we managed to get a lot of work done during that hour on track.
Ranked 19th, over two seconds behind Charles Leclerc’s reference time, Ocon hopes that his team will be able to find solutions for Saturday’s qualifying session. « We have areas to work on tonight and tomorrow to bring more performance to the car. We now know what to work on with the engineers to prepare for a better day tomorrow, I hope », he indicated.
More troubles for Gasly
Pierre Gasly, on the other hand, was able to complete 41 laps in the two sessions (20 in FP1, 21 in FP2). However, the Frenchman also struggled to perform with his car. He finished 18th each time. A possible battery issue also affected him in Free Practice 2, causing trouble for Lando Norris on his quick lap.
A slipstream is great, until there’s a car in the way 😅
Norris catches Gasly’s Alpine on a flying lap and has to abort in the final sector.#F1 #AzerbaijanGP pic.twitter.com/CYr9JcNo8Q
— Formula 1 (@F1) September 13, 2024
The Friday testing day wasn’t the most pleasant for us,” he expressed after the session. “We didn’t have a perfect day, Free Practice 1 and 2 were compromised for various reasons. We have a lot of work to do to turn things around and be better placed for the rest of the weekend. We will all work hard and strive to find improvements,” First answers this Saturday during Free Practice 3 (10:30 am, French time).
