Pierre Gasly has urged Alpine to figure out the reasons behind it being so fast in Formula 1’s Spanish Grand Prix as he hailed the momentum the team is now building.
Alpine began the current campaign as the slowest outright side in the first round in Bahrain with an overhauled A524 car that was both uncompetitive and overweight.
However, the Anglo-French marque has sustained a slight revival during recent weeks, culminating with both cars coming home inside the points in the last two races.
Gasly backed up promising practice pace as he qualified seventh and then converted that into ninth place, despite losing out to Red Bull’s Sergio Perez on the last lap.
“That was the best race of the year for us as a team,” Gasly beamed.
“Very strong qualifying yesterday, strong race, managed to battle with one McLaren [Oscar Piastri] for some laps and also a Red Bull in the end, so it was good.
“Definitely need to understand why this track seems to suit the package a lot more than the other race tracks, but I’m pleased with the team and the direction we’re heading.”
Both Gasly and team-mate Esteban Ocon expressed that Alpine’s sudden upturn arrived unexpectedly and the former has revealed the team still remained in the dark.
“Straight away after qualifying yesterday, you’re focused on the race, trying to maximise what we had to do today.
“For sure the next 3-4 days will be important to try to repeat this sort of performance in the coming races.
“It definitely shows at times there is some potential in certain circumstances and conditions which we need to figure out to be able to repeat it.”
“Today was a strong race, strong pace and happy for the team.”
Gasly has now recorded points in three consecutive races, but the Frenchman has cautioned that Barcelona was the first time Alpine achieved it on genuine merit.
“I still need some consistency, but consistency is also there,” he added.
“The last three races we scored points in Monaco, we scored points in Canada, we scored points again this weekend, so we’re finding that consistency.
“Monaco I knew was a very unique track, Canada was more like a mixed conditions where we know in this type of conditions it kind of evens out the performance of the cars.
“And this weekend on pure pace we were faster than our competitors.”
