The Alpine team was able to score points with two cars in Melbourne, but on the restart with two laps to go, Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon collided and retired. Both French riders did not hide their disappointment with the results of the weekend.
Pierre Gasley (retirement): “I am very disappointed with the results of the race, in which I gave my best. I fought against Ferrari and Fernando Alonso for most of the race. With three laps to go I didn’t expect it to end like this. I still can’t believe what happened.
I don’t want to say anything about the incident itself. We remember what happened before… There was a chance for a nice result, but we now have a few weeks to discuss the last two rounds.
The positives include the fact that I was close behind Carlos Sainz for most of the race and overtook Fernando. I think in the last laps I had a chance to improve. I don’t feel we were inferior to rivals in speed, which was somewhat unexpected, but I felt comfortable in the car and able to attack. Having the speed to fight against Ferrari and Aston Martin will keep the team motivated for the next races.”
Esteban Ocon (retired): “The blow is pretty hard, so my head hurts a little bit, but I’ll be fine.
The weekend proved to be difficult – during the whole stage I couldn’t squeeze everything out of the car, but in the race I had good pace – comparable to Ferrari and Aston Martin. The result could have been much better, but the red flags broke our strategy. We could have finished 4th and 5th, but the red flags and the chaos that followed at the restart…
I could run into anyone. Many cars went off the track, but finally I ran into Pierre, who left me no room. I’m not mad – he came up to me and apologized. As I said, anyone could have taken their place.
I don’t think cold tires were the reason many people were at the track restart. The reason is that everyone wanted to achieve the result and took risks for the sake of the result. For some, the risk was justified, for others it was not.”
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.
