In the first round of the season the Alpine car was the slowest and Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon had no chance to score points after starting from the back row. The team makes no secret of the fact that they need to improve in many areas and are waiting for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix to evaluate the car’s capabilities on the fast track.
Bruno Famen, Team Principal: “We have had a busy few weeks during testing in Bahrain and the first of 24 races. We continue to study and refine the 2024 car we currently have at our disposal. Having only just completed the first singletrack race, we will continue to work hard to make progress as the season progresses.
The drivers did an excellent job both on and off the track, with team spirit remaining high. We look forward to our next opportunity in Saudi Arabia.”
Esteban Ocon: “We knew it would be difficult in Bahrain with a completely new car. That’s ultimately what happened when we hit the track.
It wasn’t a very eventful race for us as we couldn’t achieve much given the starting positions and the pace. We must put this phase behind us and try to respond quickly. We know that miracles do not exist in sports, and it will take time to rectify the situation. I know that the entire team works with maximum dedication and motivation.
The positive outcome of the race in Bahrain was that we had no problems and were therefore able to gather a lot of information. Given the double legs we don’t have much time, but the team still looked at the data collected to understand what could be done in Jeddah.
We held the first race, were able to compare our speed with that of our competitors and analyze the effectiveness of the tires. In qualifying the battle was incredibly close: less than 0.150 seconds was not enough to advance to the second part. I hope that in Jeddah we will be closer to the others.
Jeddah is fun to fly. The track is very fast and puts a lot of physical pressure on the riders. Since the ring is a city, it is necessary to maintain maximum concentration throughout the entire race distance.
The peculiarity of the asphalt and the choice of tire compounds lead to a low degradation of rubber, making the race more like a sprint than a marathon. This, combined with the fast nature of the track, will test how well we did in terms of physical preparation over the winter.
It will be interesting to see how the A524 performs on a different type of track. I hope we will do better than in Bahrain.”
Pierre Gasly: “The speed and result of the race in Bahrain were as expected. Our goal has been to keep learning and improving, trying to maximize everything we have at our disposal. In the end, we didn’t manage to put all the pieces together, but even if we had, it wouldn’t have made much difference to the outcome.
In the first part of qualifying I was hindered by traffic when leaving the pits. I was unlucky in many ways during the race, including the chaos in the first corner and problems at the pit stop. So we can certainly do better.
The team is still far from where it wants to be. We can improve in many areas and I am confident that solutions will be found. We have to be patient and keep working with what we have. It will take time to correct the situation, but this will not change my approach: every weekend I am ready to fight for the best possible result.
We had a few days to evaluate everything and find a solution before the coming weekend. There are a few small things we can improve in Jeddah. An exciting challenge awaits us on this circuit. It’s different from Bahrain, so it will be interesting to see how the car behaves in such conditions.
I love competing in Jeddah on a fast and technical track. I’m looking forward to getting behind the wheel again on Thursday.”
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.
