According to the results of the third training session in Jeddah, Pierre Gasly was on the 9th line of the protocol, Esteban Ocon on the 14th, but the head of the Alpine F1 team thinks his riders can still reach it.
Otmar Szafnauer: “We started first on the second set of soft tyres, ahead of the rivals, after which the track conditions continued to change for the better. We take this into account, but overall we look good.
We are trying to lead the mid range of teams but the results are very tight so we will see what we can do.
Pierre Gasly fit the team perfectly, we like working with him and he likes working with us. Admittedly, in his short run he made a small mistake in Turn 22, went wide, but I think he can add a tenth or a tenth and a half.
I didn’t know him very well before, but he turned out to be a nice guy. If we talk about Esteban Okon and his failure in Bahrain, it was partly his fault, partly the team, but the operational mistakes we made are the easiest to correct. Increasing the speed of the car is much more difficult.
The track in Jeddah is very different from the one in Bahrain, and to really understand the balance of power you need three or four races. For example, we do better with race pace than with the speed of one fast lap. After this weekend our understanding of the situation will already be better and in Australia we are waiting for a completely different track in terms of characteristics.
And then both we and our competitors will introduce novelties. I hope we will have a lot of upgrades in Baku, including preparing a modernized soil.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
