Alpine riders reached the final of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix qualifying in full force – Esteban Ocon showed the seventh fastest time, Pierre Gasly – the tenth. The team is looking forward to a successful race.
Esteban Ocon (7th): “Terrific qualifying, but we put in a strong performance – great work from the whole team. Overall I’m happy with seventh place. I start sixth thanks to a penalty from Charles Leclerc – the third row offers a lot of opportunities in the race.
During qualifying, the car was the fastest all weekend. It’s great that we’re adding every day, with every session – thanks to the team for that.
The target for Sunday is a clean race and two cars to score points. Strategy will play an important role and we are fully focused on achieving a high result.”
Pierre Gasley (10th): “I have mixed feelings after qualifying. On the one hand I am happy to have reached the final, but on the other hand I feel that we performed a little below expectations. You have to keep working on the little things to get the most out of the car.
It’s great that we made it to the top ten with two cars – great work from Esteban. We have high starting positions, so the goal is to earn a lot of points.
We showed a high race pace in Bahrain and in Friday practice. I’m sure we can score points with two cars.”
Alan Permain, sports director: “In today’s qualifying we made significant progress compared to the first leg of the season. The team is happy that both cars made it to the final and we have a competitive starting position.
Esteban had a great session, added with each lap, and got the result in a very tight fight where everything was decided by thousandths of a second.
It was important for Pierre to have a clean session considering how qualifying in Bahrain had developed for him. In the race he will be fighting for big points because we have good pace in a long series this season.
It’s a good day, but there are still some little things to deal with. The team is looking forward to the result we will achieve in the race.”
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.
