Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly welcome an encouraging start to the season for Alpine but nevertheless urge the French manufacturer to improve its performance.
After the first two Grands Prix of the 2023 season, Alpine seems to be in the same position as in 2022: leading the middle of the pack. If it is only this year, there is one more top team, Aston Martin having propelled themselves into this category.
Alpine is therefore content to recover the crumbs, and so far, the pink cars are doing it brilliantly: Pierre Gasly climbed from last to ninth place in Bahrain, while in Saudi Arabia he achieved the same finish, just behind his team-mate Esteban Ocon. Alpine has scored eight points in two Grands Prix, more thanAlfa Romeo, Haas, Williams, Alpha Tauri et McLaren reunited. However, this is insufficient to satisfy the pilots.
When asked if he expected more from the Jeddah race, Gasly admits: “I would be lying if I said no. Personally, I thought we were going to have a bit more pace to join the battle ahead of us. Unfortunately, we finished where we are now, eighth and ninth. I believe we were ten seconds from Ferrari. Mercedes was clearly faster than we thought.”
“No, we cannot be satisfied with our current position”asserts Ocon. “There are a few teams that have improved enormously compared to the others. It shows that it is possible and that you have to keep fighting, that you have to keep digging, keep thinking. That is the atmosphere in the team.”
Pierre Gasly (Alpine)
The Ebroician is nevertheless relieved to have “finally launched [sa] saison” following an ordeal-like Bahrain Grand Prix, where he suffered a several avoidable penalties race. “We got the best out of qualifying as well as the race. We mightn’t compete with the cars in front. AT For a moment we thought it was going to be possible to resist the Ferraris, but they were too fast and they widened the gap following the start of the second stint.
The behavior of the Alpine A523, however, posed problems for its pilots at various times during the weekend, which those concerned had not failed to complain regarding following qualifying.
“The feeling was not good from the start”confirme Ocon. “Especially in FP3, the feeling was not what I wanted, the rear end was very unstable. The car was quite tricky to control, and we reversed the situation between FP3 and qualifying. My side of the team did a great job to get there. We had to fight for the car to be the way we wanted it, to have confidence in the car. Because if we don’t have confidence [à Djeddah]we are nowhere.”
Gasly concludes: “On the plus side, I scored points a second time for my second race with the team, and things were slightly more consistent over the weekend. But there are still things to work on. I felt very well on Saturday morning, things got a bit complicated in qualifying, and [en course] I had somewhat the same difficulties. So we will analyze everything. But overall, we know what to improve.”
Interview by Adam Cooper