Gasly Names 'One Of Best Performances Of The Season' For Alpine

Thursday, 09 November 2023 at 13:00

Alpine F1 driver Pierre Gasly reflected on scoring P7 during the 2023 Sao Paulo Grand Prix at Interlagos Circuit.

Alpine drivers Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly went into the race with low expectations following the weak performance of their car in the qualifying session.

The two drivers qualified in P12 and P13 but were penalized after the session for impeding other cars at the pit exit and having to start from P14 and P15 as a consequence.

However, two drivers made an outstanding recovery through the race. Ocon finished in P10, and Gasly managed to cross the line in P7.

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The number 10 driver even overtook Lewis Hamilton on Mercedes in P8. As reported by formula1.com, he told the media: "I’m very happy with today’s race, and I would say it was one of our best performances of the season."

Gasly was so satisfied with the race to put it amongst the best performances of the season, like his P3 during the Sprint race in Belgium and Ocon's P3 in Monaco.

"It was a very challenging race to manage with multiple stints and pit-stops, but the entire team did a great job today to make the right calls and execute the stops well."

Alpine team produces its own engines, which should be an advantage compared to teams like McLaren and Aston Martin, who buy engines from other teams. But the team has been struggling this season.

"For the team, in seventh and tenth, it’s clearly a strong performance, especially after starting from near the back of the grid."

Gasly finished only six seconds behind Carlos Sainz on Ferrari who started the race 8 positions ahead of the Frenchman, hinting Alpine was faster than both Mercedes and Ferrari this weekend.

"We competed with Carlos [Sainz] and the two Mercedes throughout, so that is clearly a good step forwards from yesterday."