A lot of disappointment at Alpine after the qualifications in Qatar
Eliminated in Q1 and in Q2 respectively, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly experienced mixed fortunes during the qualifying session of the Qatar Grand Prix, and both expressed their disappointment as they got out of their cars.
Weekends follow one another but are not alike at the end of this season for Alpine. After the historic and extraordinary double podium of the Brazilian Grand Prix and Pierre Gasly’s third place on the grid in Las Vegas, neither of the two Alpines reached Q3 in the Qatari night. Worse still, one of them, Esteban Ocon’s car, clocked the 20th and final time of the session.
Deprived of the latest developments enjoyed by his teammate, Esteban Ocon could not explain such a huge gap with Gasly.
« I did a good lap, I had nothing better to do. I didn’t make any mistakes and it was clean from start to finish. But we lacked a lot of performance. It was the same in the Sprint race (finished 14th, five places and about fifteen seconds behind his teammate note), we were more like seven tenths or a second off, rather than five to seven tenths like in previous sessions of previous weekends. It’s starting to add up and it’s worrying on our side, we have to keep working » declared the native of Evreux.
On his side, Pierre Gasly came out frustrated from this penultimate qualifying session of the year. Just twelve thousandths of a second away from making it to Q3, the winner of the 2020 Italian Grand Prix will still aim for points in the race.
« We should have been in Q3. We did good things, but on the last run, we had zero grip with the tires. I don’t think we understood what was needed for the tires on the out laps. It’s a fine margin, but we didn’t do the best we could. Sunday is when we score points, and we will try to make up for it.
In the championship, Alpine is currently 7th, three points behind Haas F1 and three points ahead of Racing Bulls. With Kevin Magnussen just one place ahead of him on the grid, Pierre Gasly will be determined to regain 6th place for his team.
« We know it will be complicated to catch up with the Haas, but we will fight. Alonso was also fast so our race will be with them, but the race will be long and a lot of things can happen,” Gasly concluded.
The Qatar Grand Prix can be followed live on our website this Sunday from 5 p.m.
