Alpine has had a weekend of ups and downs so far at the Formula 1 Chinese GP, but showed signs of progress compared to the previous round in Australia. In the Sprint Race, Pierre Gasly started 7th on new medium tires and finished 11th, while Franco Colapinto started 16th and finished 14th.
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In the qualifying session for Sunday’s GP, Gasly secured 7th place, marking the team’s second Q3 appearance this season, and Colapinto was 12th, coming very close to advancing to the final stage of the session.
Gasly highlighted the team’s evolution: “I am very pleased with today’s performance in the qualifying session, securing our second Q3 appearance of the weekend. It feels like we are heading in the right direction. We executed a good qualifying session this afternoon and increased speed with every lap, while we had a more complicated morning in the Sprint Race, where we had a lot of tire degradation. This is something we need to work on for tomorrow if we want to compete with the cars around us. Every detail counts and we hope to have a competitive advantage tomorrow and turn this weekend’s progress into more points for the team,” he said.
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Colapinto also appeared optimistic after the car’s evolution: “Since yesterday and from where we started the day in the Sprint Race, I feel much more positive with the car and the result in the qualifying session. We couldn’t change much from ‘parc fermé’, but we worked hard with the engineers and with Pierre, which translated into a better result today. We are still missing some adjustments, but we are close to the points, so let’s hope for a good start tomorrow,” he added.
The team’s Executive Director, Steve Nielsen, evaluated the team’s performance: “We started the weekend in much better shape than in Melbourne and we are learning about the new cars and regulations quickly. Pierre was unable to replicate his strong qualifying in the Sprint mainly due to tire graining, but his seventh place in qualifying is very positive. Franco also moved forward, missing out on Q3 by a very narrow margin. We know there is work to be done overnight to improve our competitiveness and increase our points tally tomorrow,” he added.
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