Alpine drivers Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly were on the back row of the Bahrain Grand Prix. Qualifying for the first stage of the season confirmed the assumptions of many experts that Alpine currently has the slowest car in the championship.
Esteban Ocon (19th): “We were ready for a difficult qualifying, and that turned out to be the case. It’s important to understand which specific areas need improvement, and we identified these quite quickly when we started working with this machine.
As I said on the radio in the return round, I am confident that the team will make progress. During testing and practice we worked to improve the car in all areas, but this was not enough to qualify for the second part of qualifying.
Tomorrow there is a long race ahead and I think we will be closer to our rivals than in one lap. We will try to run a clean race and make progress. Let’s see what positions we are in.”
Pierre Gasly (20th): “We knew that the team would have a difficult start to the season, but it is still very unpleasant to stop fighting in the first part of qualifying. Apparently I didn’t do my best today.
There was a lot of traffic on the exit lap, so at the start of the fast lap the tires were not in their optimal operating range. Be that as it may, it would be difficult to achieve anything truly greater.
We know where we stand and the team is working as hard as we can to make the car better. The most important thing is to remain a united team.
Anything can happen in a race. We will try to take advantage of every opportunity and make the best of it. I will attack the whole distance.”
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.
