It was an overall decent day for Alpine F1, as Pierre Gasly found his way into the top ten during the Sprint Qualifying for the 2026 Singapore GP, with teammate Franco Colapinto set to start right behind in P11. The driver duo are in a strong position to fight for points in the last Sprint Race of the 2026 F1 season, in spite of the fact that they are already looking forward to the main event, the full length race on Sunday and its Qualifying session.
Gasly ready to fight in the Sprint Race
After the only practice session of the racing weekend, which saw him running smoothly for the whole 60 minutes, albeit in rather different conditions compared to the later Sprint Qualifying at nighttime, the French driver consistently ended all three grid-setting segments in tenth place.
Not among the drivers who had their final SQ1 round affected by the Overtake Mode outing, the one-time race winner was able to get through all cut-offs, not too fazed by the delay in SQ2 starting time too.
Overall, the Alpine driver’s experience of the Sprint Qualifying of the 2026 F1 Singapore GP left him positive for the upcoming, more competitive sessions to come. However, he couldn’t declare himself fully content with his day, as he was caught be surprise by the suboptimal performance of the soft tyres.
Tyre performance issues hindered Gasly’s SQ3
Gasly had been able to get to try them only in the latest segment of Sprint Qualifying, and the response and pace he extracted from them didn’t meet his expectations.
”Good to get in the top ten. The soft run was really poor, so we need to understand a bit more. It was the first time we ran it today, and it felt really quite bad in terms of grip. So, at least, we get some good learning for tomorrow. But, yeah, in the mix for the top ten”.
While failing to score points in the last three races, Alpine has repeatedly proved its worth throughout the current season, with Gasly and Colapinto running in a strong P7 and P8 ahead of their crash in Baku. Both sides of the Alpine F1 garage will have a new chance to try and catch up to Racing Bulls in the Teams’ Standings in the Sprint Race, but the focus of Gasly is already on the preparation work for the next grid setting session.
In particular, he hope he will gain a better understanding of the softest tyre compound ahead of Q3 in order to make the most out of his A526.
“Yeah, very much. You still have points to take in the top eight. Obviously, nothing really happens at the front. It’s going to be tricky, but, the most important for us is we know the big points are more on Sunday, so we’ll try to learn as much as we can. We’ll see tonight. But, there is a bit of work to understand a bit more about the soft.”
A whole new weekend for Colapinto after some tougher rounds
After serving a grid penalty in Malaysia to take up a new power unit and crashing into his teammate the weekend before, the Argentinian driver was ready to leave the past behind and try and return into the top ten.
Colapinto narrowly advanced through the first Sprint Qualifying segment, but was knocked out of SQ2 by his teammate by only 0.094s. Ultimately, the Alpine F1 driver recalled some lack of feeling with the track in his second ever Singapore outing, as he retold the second segment of Sprint Qualifying from his point of view.
“It was OK. I struggled a bit at the start with tyres, start of the lap and then it was a pretty good lap, just a bit less than a tenth of Q3. So, it’s not bad, but still some time to find for tomorrow. I think we can improve the car a bit. So, yeah, we have to review some areas and, hopefully, get better for tomorrow.
In light of the experience matured from his two on-track sessions of the day, the former Williams man admitted he has asked his team to make some slight modifications to his car and his set-up, aiming at finding the best window of performance before Qualifying for the main race.
Colapinto is realistic about his scoring chances in the upcoming Sprint Race, especially with points only awarded to the top eight, consequently on his side of the garage the main focus will be the second on-track outing of the day.
”We know we can do a few things on the car. It’s going to be tricky to overtake, so it will be quite difficult. But, yeah, try to maximise opportunities and have a good Qualifying tomorrow.”
