Alpine left Zandvoort empty-handed despite both Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto showing promise in a chaotic wet-dry F1 Dutch GP. Split strategies briefly put both cars in contention, but ultimately neither driver converted the opportunity into points.
Gasly explains Alpine’s gamble
Gasly started from 14th and attempted a bold one-stop strategy, running 23 laps on mediums before switching to hards for the remainder of the 72-lap race. For a time, the Frenchman was up in eighth, taking advantage of a second Safety Car period while rivals pitted. However, Alpine’s strategy unraveled in the closing stages as his worn tyres left him vulnerable.
Reflecting on the team’s approach, Gasly said:
“Yeah, I mean yeah, we tried to go for the track position, which obviously looked quite attractive at some point when we were running in P8 towards the end, but yeah, I just tried to defend as hard as I could and the delta compound was just too big, so yeah. It’s quite tough to finish where we are after the race we did, but yeah, it is what it is. We tried different stuff across cars, gave the best chances as a team. Yeah, just a shame it didn’t quite work for a few laps.”
Tyre struggles and team orders
Gasly was also asked about the moments when Colapinto came through, with Alpine issuing instructions as tyres diverged between the cars. He admitted that he was powerless to fight.
“Yeah, I mean, first time I had an issue in the last corner, almost binned it, so obviously I had a poor exit out of that one, and then at the end I was on normal, no tyres at the end, so it was completely fine to let him pass.”
Despite finishing 17th after being overtaken in the closing laps of the Dutch GP, Gasly took some encouragement from earlier in the weekend.
“Yeah, I mean yesterday in Quali I managed to get close to the Q3 and we need to still try to get everything out of the package we have and still be in the mix. In the race today obviously you can look at it in different ways, when you have so many incidents, safety cars, you try to take some, try different stuff and unfortunately it didn’t quite pay off, but we’ll review everything which was possible and see if there was a better thing to do.”
Colapinto reflects on missed first points
Franco Colapinto started 16th and ran a more aggressive three-stop race. He began on softs, switched to hards on lap 19, then took mediums on lap 53, before a final stop for softs in the closing stages. That late gamble gave him pace to challenge for points, but he ultimately finished 11th.
Colapinto appeared slightly surprised when asked about swapping positions with Gasly, insisting it was a matter of on-track action rather than team orders:
“I don’t think we swapped. I just overtook him,” he added, “I think I just overtook him in the race. It was a good race. We were very close to my first point with the team. of course, it’s very disappointing. I was expecting we may have scored a point. I think today we were just short. I’m not very happy, but I think it’s a good thing. It’s. positive thing as well. I just think that we could have managed it as part of the race better. And yeah, that’s it.”
Late tyre call “nearly paid off”
Colapinto felt Alpine made the right call with their late strategy, but admitted the execution could have been stronger.
“Yeah, it was paying off. I think we did the right thing. I think we just didn’t maximise it as a team at the end. That’s really it. I feel we were very, very close to the points, and we should have scored. Yeah, it was because we just didn’t maximise well at the beginning.”
Despite the disappointment, the Argentine highlighted his positive work with the team at the Dutch GP.
“Yeah, I feel very good with the car and with my engineers. I think we are working well together. I think we just need to shave some things a bit more and it will come; the point. But today it’s annoying that we should have scored and we didn’t really help ourselves that much.”
