Pierre Gasly laments a long afternoon for Alpine at Suzuka
After a collision with his teammate Esteban Ocon, Pierre Gasly suffered significant damages that affected the aerodynamic downforce of his single-seater for the remainder of the race at the Japanese Grand Prix.
For the second consecutive time, Pierre Gasly was soundly beaten in qualifying, failing to make it to Q2 in Suzuka while Esteban Ocon just managed to get through. Starting in 17th position, Gasly crossed the finish line 16th, just behind his teammate. To make matters worse, the two French drivers collided during the race restart, after the red flag caused by a collision between Daniel Ricciardo and Alex Albon.
Gasly then found himself powerless throughout the race. He was unable to do anything against Logan Sargeant’s Williams or Yuki Tsunoda’s V-CARB, who overtook him on the outside in a normally difficult turn. It was later revealed during the race that his car was suffering from significant damage affecting its aerodynamic downforce, partially explaining these very poor performances. Another lost weekend for Alpine, stranded this season.
« Unfortunately, it was a long afternoon for us in Suzuka. There are a few positive points, notably with two very strong standing starts. At the second one, after the red flag, I overtook the Haas, then Esteban, and found myself alongside Yuki [Tsunoda]. At that moment, I was sandwiched between the two in an unfortunate racing incident. This resulted in significant damage to the floor – causing a loss of approximately 30 points of aerodynamic downforce – and therefore a loss of time per lap due to these damages, explains Pierre Gasly in a statement from Alpine.
From there, the race became very difficult, there wasn’t much else we could do than to push as hard as possible. It’s not where we want to be, but it’s a good thing to have brought the first improvements to the car this weekend . We must continue to develop the concept, to bring parts as soon as possible because we need them to improve our current position », he said. Hard to argue with him.
At the Canal + microphone, the Frenchman explained that the team did not expect him to gain three positions during the first start. But things went from bad to worse. There was the red flag, then Yuki turns left and I find myself sandwiched, a contact with Esteban that tears off his left side, a racing incident that gave us game over. It’s a shame because we can’t see the performance of the car, it ended quite early for us, it’s very very complicated for us. We tried until the end but we were too far behind. Some things are moving in the right direction but we need more improvements on the car, he concluded. It remains to be seen if Alpine will finally be able to raise the level during the return of the Chinese Grand Prix in fifteen days.
