Pierre Gasly was pleased how he managed to get back in points in F1 Bahrain GP, as Alfa Romeo played a trick to take away fastest lap point.
It was not the dream start for Gasly with Alpine on Saturday when he qualified last, but he made up for it more than that on Sunday by going through the field to end up ninth and score points on his first race with his new team in F1 Bahrain GP.
It was a good strategy from Alpine to help Gasly get up the order amid the disaster that struck Esteban Ocon. The Frenchman too was more than pleased to end up ninth after not feeling that great with his pace during the Friday running.
“I did say that I was going to go for the points, but we knew it would be a difficult task,” said Gasly to media. “I must say I am extremely pleased to finish that first race for Alpine in the points, especially starting from where we were. It was an off day, and things didn’t come together, but I was confident in our race car and it’s a really positive race.
“Starting from where we were, I don’t think there was more to get from it. Starting in 20th, P8 was in contention. But overall, we need to work. I must say the top four, now that Aston is able to finish on the podium, we’ve got the big three also, but I think we’ve got a really good base.
“I lost a lot of time in the traffic at the start of the race, so starting in the right position should give us definitely more chances, and I am definitely optimistic for the coming races,” summed up Gasly, who was close in the end behind Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas.
Another lap or two would have helped him. Like Gasly, the Finn also had a good start to end up in points as the leading best of the rest behind the Top 4 teams as things stand. He had few battles but otherwise it was a lonely outing until the last few laps.
“I’m pleased, I don’t think there was much more to get today, all the cars ahead of us were clearly much faster unfortunately,” said Bottas to media. “For that I’m happy and also being aggressive with the strategy was nice. So solid first race. We have a good base car and today shows that yes we can score points with this car.
“There’s still obviously lots of work to do so we’ll keep working hard. The start was really important, making those places on the opening lap was crucial as the cars around us are very well matched and overtaking is not easy. We went out aggressively, both on track and with our strategy, and it was definitely the right thing to do.
“We also had to be smart and pick our battles, making sure we kept some of our tyres for when we needed it: it turned out to be important at the end, when it got a bit close with Gasly, but in the end we brought it home,” summed up Bottas.
Alfa Romeo played a team game too by using Zhou Guanyu in taking the fastest lap point from its rivals. Since the Chinese racer was running outside the points, they called him in for a late stop in order to take one point from Alpine and Gasly.
They had the fastest lap for long but Guanyu took it away and as per the rule, no one scored a point via fastest lap in Bahrain. Gasly did ask his race engineer post-race on radio. if they managed to hold on to the fastest lap to score an extra point.
“With Zhou, it was just in the last part of the start pulling away, it went a bit too much into wheelspin and we lost some ground there,” said Alfa Romeo’s trackside engineer Xevi Pujolar to media. “After that, we were just trying to see if we will get back into the fight, towards the mid-point of the race.
“That’s why also we tried with a soft in the last part of the race in the third stint. But We didn’t really pick up the pace as we wanted. Probably the stint was a bit too challenging. We tried to do at least a ‘team work’,” by sending Zhou out to set the fastest lap. He did a mega job to achieve the fastest lap, and then we removed that point from Alpine who, at the moment, are our competitors.”
Likewise Bottas acknowledged what Guanyu did in taking away the fastest lap from Gasly. “It was also important for Zhou to get the fastest lap right at the end to steal the point from our competition – he did a good job and it shows how well we work as a team,” he said. “P8 was the most we could get tonight and there’s nothing more we could have done.”
Here’s Zhou Guanyu’s fastest lap: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.dhl-fastest-lap-award-2023-bahrain-grand-prix.1759561952530402009.html
Here’s Esteban Ocon on his disaster outing