Alpine had a day of extremes on Friday during the free practice sessions for the Belgian Grand Prix in Formula 1. While Franco Colapinto finished FP2 in an encouraging seventh place, Pierre Gasly suffered a heavy crash at the end of the session but reassured the team by confirming he walked away unscathed from the impact.
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The performance of both drivers caught attention at Spa-Francorchamps. Colapinto improved from 15th in FP1 to seventh in FP2, while Gasly went from 17th to 18th after having his best time deleted for exceeding track limits before the crash.
Gasly explained that he lost control of the car due to an unexpected problem: “First of all, I’m happy to be okay after the crash in FP2. Obviously, it was quite a heavy impact on the barrier after the car broke and I couldn’t fully recover,” he said.
The Frenchman highlighted that the team will investigate the cause of the problem: “I’m sure we will investigate what happened, as it was a big snap and resulted in a lot of damage to the car. Tomorrow, we will try to put everything together and focus on getting into the top ten in the qualifying session in the afternoon,” he said.
On the other side of the garage, Colapinto left Spa optimistic after a day dedicated to testing and data collection: “Today was very productive and we finished the day in a pretty decent position on the timing sheets, P7 in FP2, so I think we can be quite satisfied with our progress in both sessions,” said the Argentine.
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The driver highlighted that Alpine worked on different setups throughout the day and avoided premature comparisons with rivals: “I know some of our competitors may not have set representative lap times, but we will focus on ourselves first and seek improvements and find more performance,” he concluded.
Steve Nielsen, the team director, described Friday as intense. According to him, FP1 was dedicated to cross-testing between the two cars, while FP2 allowed a more accurate assessment of the aerodynamic package’s potential. Nielsen also noted that Gasly was showing progress before losing his best lap due to track limits.
“Pierre then had a crash where he had a car failure and then went off track at high speed, with little chance to correct the course. Fortunately, Pierre is fine and now we have a lot of work to do overnight to fix the car,” he concluded.
Despite the damage, Alpine believes it will be able to repair the car in time and remains confident in fighting for a good result with both drivers for the rest of the weekend.
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