Pierre Gasly stated that Alpine is “far behind” Racing Bulls in the fight for the best team in the midfield of Formula 1. After the Belgian GP, the Frenchman acknowledged that the rival has become a benchmark and emphasized that the team needs to evolve to stay in the fight.
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“Yes, I mean, in single-lap qualifying, they were far ahead,” Gasly said when asked if Racing Bulls is currently the benchmark among teams outside the top four on the grid. For the driver, Racing Bulls and Audi have an advantage in the dispute: “They clearly, I think, are the reference along with Audi, and we need to keep working if we want to keep this fight alive.”
In Spa-Francorchamps, Franco Colapinto scored a point for Alpine, while Gasly finished 11th and was out of the points zone. The result left Racing Bulls tied with the French team in the constructors’ championship, while Audi also closed in after Gabriel Bortoleto scored four points.
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Gasly also explained that problems during the race hampered his result. The driver cited a bad start, a slow pit stop, and a battle with Liam Lawson and Colapinto: “I was fighting with Liam. I had a bad start, but I managed to recover two positions,” he stated. “With a better stop, we would have finished ahead of Lawson and Lindblad, which I think could have changed our race, because I spent 25 laps behind them after that.”
The Frenchman also lamented the loss of position in the three-car battle and assessed that Alpine performed below expectations. “It was a somewhat frustrating race, and I think in the end, we were in P10 and P11, and we were simply too slow, finishing far behind Bortoleto, and clearly that’s not where we want to be,” the driver concluded.
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