Endless crisis
The difficult period continues Alpine teamwho also struggled enormously in the Sprint qualifying of the Chinese GP with both single-seaters, failing to pass the first cut neither with the Pierre Gasly nor with that of Esteban Oconwhich was also equipped with some updates compared to the car of his companion and fellow countryman. Indeed, in the internal derby the best time was set by Gasly. The #10 achieved the 16th fastest time, less than a tenth ahead of his garage mate.
The words of the pilots
“Today we didn’t make the most of the car’s potential – Ocon admitted bluntly – I think we can get more performance out of the car but, unfortunately, with only one practice session, we weren’t able to put everything together in time for Sprint qualifying. We will try to do our best to progress in tomorrow morning’s Sprint Race and make changes to the car when Parc Fermé opens ahead of Grand Prix qualifying. We will do some analysis overnight and evaluate what changes to the set-up we can make between sessions to improve tomorrow“.
“The Friday morning session was challenging for us, due to a high voltage issue, but the team worked hard and managed to replace the Power Unit and battery before Sprint Qualifying as a precautionary measure – Gasly underlined – the session turned out to be slightly better than expected, although we are far from where we would like to be currently. From what we’ve seen so far, the updates to Esteban’s car appear to be a step in the right direction, so I’m looking forward to Miami where we can both race the updated car. In the meantime, we will continue to work hard to get the most out of the car in the Sprint Race and qualifying tomorrow.”
