Alpine had a positive Saturday in the qualifying session for the Formula 1 Japanese GP, with Pierre Gasly securing seventh place on the starting grid. While the Frenchman celebrated the car’s evolution, Franco Colapinto finished in P15 and is betting on race pace to try to move forward.
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This performance reinforces the team’s confidence after improvements made between sessions, especially in Gasly’s case. Alpine is now aiming to convert the good starting position into points, as well as trying to recover ground with both cars in the race.
Gasly highlighted the team’s work to improve performance after initial difficulties: “I am very happy with P7 in the qualifying session today. The team did a very good job to find more performance in the car, so a big thank you to everyone for the hard work overnight,” he said.
The Frenchman explained that he was not satisfied with the car’s behavior on Friday, which required a detailed analysis: “Yesterday I wasn’t very happy with the car and couldn’t drive the way I wanted, so we had a lot to analyze. We made good changes overnight and the car felt much better in FP3.”
According to Gasly, additional adjustments before the qualifying session helped achieve the best performance of the weekend: “We made some adjustments before the qualifying session and the car was the best it has been all weekend. I think P7 was the maximum we could achieve today, considering where the top three teams are. Tomorrow we will have a challenge to maintain P7 with some fast cars behind. Our goal is to take advantage of the good starting position and be alert at the start and in possible restarts,” the French driver concluded.
On the other side of the garage, Colapinto acknowledged that his result was below expectations: “It wasn’t the result we expected in the qualifying session. This weekend, we struggled with pace on low fuel,” said the Argentine driver, who will make his debut at the Japanese circuit.
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Despite this, Colapinto demonstrated confidence for the race: “The car behaves much better with a full tank, which is promising for tomorrow. The race pace looked more competitive yesterday, so we hope to be able to move forward in the Grand Prix,” he concluded.
Team director Steve Nielsen highlighted that Suzuka presented a different challenge for Alpine, but saw positive signs: “It is promising to see that, with Pierre, we managed to repeat the same qualifying result as the previous event, in P7. This gives us confidence that we have a competitive package at different circuits,” he said.
Nielsen also commented on Colapinto’s situation and reinforced the team’s work: “Franco didn’t take the same step between sessions and went out in Q2. As a team, we will work hard to understand why the pace didn’t appear and help him close that gap,” he added.
Based on the pace shown with a full tank, Alpine believes it can compete for points with both cars: “We know it’s a long race and reliability is still a factor early in the season. We will stay fully focused and try to score more points before the spring break,” Nielsen concluded.
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