Alpine endured a difficult outing at the F1 Hungarian GP, despite Pierre Gasly putting in what he described as a “very good” performance on race day.
Gasly was satisfied with his overall performance on Sunday, despite finishing last, just ahead of rookie teammate Franco Colapinto.
Alpine’s race was already off to a difficult start after Gasly and Colapinto qualified 17th and 14th respectively on a circuit notorious for limited overtaking opportunities. Hopes for favourable rain-induced chaos were dashed as conditions remained stable on Sunday, with the French team struggling to make gains on pace alone.
Speaking after the race, Gasly recognised that his efforts were overshadowed by the car’s middling pace.
“Well, I think [my race] was very good,” he told the media. “It’s just where we are with the car.”
Despite attempting different strategies with their drivers—Gasly opting for a one-stop and Colapinto going for two—neither approach yielded a better result.
“We started on hard, we boxed, we did 37 laps on medium,” Gasly continued. “I defended for about 15 laps, I defended on the Williams, on [Nico] Hülkenberg, on most of them. Managed to overtake a few guys. Overall, it was good.
“We knew the one-stop with our car was not really what we wanted to do initially. But with the pace we have, we just have to try some things and see what we get out of it.”
Gasly focuses on the positives after a tricky weekend
When asked, Gasly also clarified that both Alpine drivers used the same downforce set-up.
“No, we went max and then after we tried a different thing on FP2, which didn’t work,” he said. “I mean, it wasn’t like a very clean weekend, even in qualy. We had some damage with the front wing. So I just feel like we left a little bit on the table yesterday.
“Today I think it’s just what we got as a car and as a team. We tried to two-stop on Franco, one-stop on myself. We’re just finishing quite far away.
“I think we’re going to be happy with the last few weekends. We managed to score points. Just accept that some of the weekends are going to be more complicated.”
On the clash with Sainz
Gasly was handed a 10-second time penalty and two penalty points on his licence for a late-race incident that saw him force Williams driver Carlos Sainz off the track, souring the Frenchman’s afternoon further. Still, the penalty barely changed the outcome—demoting Gasly from 17th at the flag to 19th—as Alpine never really demonstrated the pace to fight for points throughout the race.
“Yeah, I’m just battling,” Gasly said of the incident. “I’m not going to give my position easy. I tried to go on the outside, I defended, we touched. And that’s how it is, I don’t really have much to say about it.”
Heading into the summer break, Gasly remains Alpine’s sole point scorer, putting a total of 20 points on the board across the first fourteen rounds of the season. His best result came at the British GP, where he finished P6. On the other side of the garage, Colapinto has been struggling to find his footing after replacing Jack Doohan six rounds into the season.
The Enstone-based team is currently last in the standings, trailing closest rivals Haas by 15 points.
