Pierre Gasly, Esteban Ocon reflect on close fight between two at the start of F1 Miami GP, as they add on the progress made by Alpine.
It was a hectic start for the Alpine pair in F1 Miami GP and their team members in the pitwall and the garage would have been nervous seeing the first few laps. Both Gasly and Ocon went wheel-to-wheel in the tight corners of the street circuit.
It was close between the two and they nearly touched but fortunately didn’t. Gasly did win the battle initially but Ocon won the long one. It was a bit too close but since they didn’t touch or made contact, it was all well as they claimed to be.
“Some battles with many guys, with my teammate too,” said Gasly to media. “It was great, I managed to come out on top at the end of first lap, he got me on Lap 2, that’s the way it is. It was pretty intense, didn’t get much space through Turns 2 and 3. So, unfortunately I had to run wide there but managed to get him back after that.”
Ocon added: “I didn’t so either but apparently it works. I thought it was going to be sorted out because I was on the inside, I saw Pierre keeps going, I was like ‘okay, lets give it a go’. And no, it was fair racing, good racing, unfortunately we struggling with some straightline speed since Saturday.
“After the fight I lost quite a bit, in two laps I lost two positions on the straightline. But it was a very well fought race, it was fun and that’s the type of racing I like wheel-to-wheel.” He managed to eke out a points result which included a late battle with Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, which the Spaniard won.
For Gasly, it was the first time that he got the updates that Ocon ran in China. The major thing was weight loss of the chassis and it did help him to fight in the race. “We had a great race in Miami even if my side missed out on scoring points,” he said “We did everything we had to do in order to put ourselves in the best possible position to score points.
“We had good pace, we battled hard at the start to keep position and then, as with our plan, we pitted early. The VSC timing did not go in my favour but that is the way it is sometimes. From a team perspective, we scored the first point of the season and that’s most important.
“Whether it’s me or Esteban does not matter and I’m just really pleased for the team. It’s great for motivation and confidence for everyone at Enstone and Viry. We need a lot more to fight for higher positions. We are in the mix, it’s been the best weekend of the season from a performance point of view, so it’s good to show progress.
“I think weight is a….on pure lap time, you can quantify maybe 10 kilos is three tenths per lap, so it is quite easy to quantify but even when you are talking about few kilos, over a distance in terms of energy you put in on the tyres, it does effect. So, it helps the degradation all in all, in terms of car balance, the difference you see with the floor, a lot more downforce as well.
“It is just like a tiny bit but at the moment in the midfield even the tiny bit allows us to race a bit more, be a bit more pushy sometimes, be able to overtake and that was the whole point of the race. We had some great battles, I managed to even pass Alonso at one point, didn’t really expect to fight with him but we just seem to be a bit more in the mix,” summed up Gasly.
Here’s Esteban Ocon on tussle with Fernando Alonso
Here’s how F1 Miami GP panned out
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