The race at Suzuka was the fourth of the season and the fifth in a row, including last year, in which the Alpine team did not earn any points. Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly finished fifteenth and sixteenth and admitted the team still has a lot of work to do to challenge for places in the top ten again.
Esteban Ocon (15th): “Not the easiest race. My car suffered some damage at the start and after that we tried different strategies to have a chance.
Unfortunately, today we were not fast enough to finish ahead of the competitors, who I overtook on the restart. It’s a shame the car was damaged, but I don’t think it dramatically affected the results of the race.
We have issues with race speed compared to qualifying, so there is a lot to analyze. I hope we come back stronger for the next race in Shanghai.”
Pierre Gasly (16th): “The race in Suzuka unfortunately took a long time for us. We saw several positive signals, including two strong starts.
During the restart after the red flags I overtook both Haas drivers and then Esteban and I battled with Yuki Tsunoda. At that moment I was sitting between them, and there was contact. It was a racing incident that caused my car to lose about 30 points of downforce, which affected my lap times.
Then I had a very difficult race where I couldn’t do anything, although I attacked with all my might. This is not the position we want to be in, but it is good that the team installed the first new features on the car this weekend.
We must continue to refine the concept and release updates as quickly as possible to improve our current position.”
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.