Pierre Gasly refers to Alexander Albon’s DQ which allowed him to start on the left side in F1 Dutch GP and enabled for double Turn 1 overtake.
It did not start well for Alpine along with its drivers Gasly and Esteban Ocon in F1 Dutch GP at Zandvoort. They had no pace on Friday but Saturday saw a turnaround – at least on one side of the garage. The former ended up inside the Top 10 in qualifying.
The latter was knocked out in Q1 itself. The results for Gasly surprised everybody. There was little optimism but the race proved to be different. The Frenchman cleared both the Aston Martin drivers in a crucial move at the start to make a Top 10 result possible.
He referred to Albon’s disqualification which helped Gasly to start from the left side of the grid. It was then he envisaged a move around the outside which stuck. There was pressure from Fernando Alonso but he resisted it eventually to secure points result.
“I am extremely happy, I must say we definitely not that optimistic after qualifying,” said Gasly to media. “It was great quali to get Q3. Yeah, what a race it was, honestly, it was amazing. I had a great start, managed to go around the outside of Lance and Fernando in Turn 1 which I think was extremely important for our race.
“I liked the line, actually I knew that…well I feel sorry for Alex, but when he got disqualified, it moved me to the left and I knew it gave me the opportunity to take the outside line, you never know if the space will be there but I saw both Aston go a bit inside and so I managed to roll the speed on the outside.
“It was bit bumpy on the kerb on the exit but still made it work. then I managed to control the race, manage the tyres, I had Fernando behind who was putting quite the pressure all the way through. I had a couple of great battles with Lewis and Carlos as well. It was fun and very pleased that we managed to get on top of the midfield.”
Gasly noted about set-up changes after the simulator work from Jack Doohan. That enabled for a better run on his side than Ocon. “Not too sure, we made couple of changes following Jack Doohan’s simulation, as Friday was tough and the feeling in the car was quite poor, obviously, it was quite windy,” he said.
“The race was slightly less windy which probably helped a little bit and a great start, managed to get positions, I mean I don’t know, I try to do the best I can and I think it worked out well, so I am happy for the guys.”
Ocon, meanwhile, did not enjoy the weekend at all and expects thorough analysis before Monza. “It was difficult weekend, we did the maximum that we could on our side in this race, the positive is that Pierre and the team scored some points, so well done to them for that,” he said. “And that’s a good thing because we can hopefully point out the differences and where our performances wasn’t great and hopefully we can find what didn’t go to plan for the next race.”
Here’s race start: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-dutch-grand-prix-verstappen-jumps-norris-to-take-the-lead.1808365125618238557
Here’s how F1 Dutch GP panned out
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