Pierre Gasly says Alpine needed the F1 Spanish GP result after a tough triple-header they had, as he notes about drinks bottle issue during the grand prix.
After loosing team boss Oliver Oakes and replacing Jack Doohan with Franco Colapinto, Alpine did not have best of runs in Imola and Monaco. They did not start the F1 Spanish GP on a good note either, but Gasly recovered pace and made it inside the Top 10 in qualifying.
He had hard battles against Isack Hadjar and Fernando Alonso, but lost out to the Frenchman. He lost out to Nico Hulkenberg too but maintained track position over Alonso and Liam Lawson, which was crucial in the end. The late safety car didn’t hamper his position as well of ninth.
A penalty to Max Verstappen helped him finish eighth in the end. Post-race, Gasly noted that his drinks bottle was not working and he did the whole race without it. “It was very hard, I was very thirsty, because of the drink system,” he said to media. “We realised on the grid, when I jumped in the car, that the drink was stuck or something didn’t work.
“I had no drink during the whole race, which I knew was going to make the afternoon quite long.” Overall, Gasly was happy to score but bit miffed loosing out to Hulkenberg, whose strategy and pace helped him in the end. The German escaped the blue flag trouble which caught out the Frenchman.
The team needed the points as Gasly noted, especially considering that Sauber leapfrogged them in the standing. “I’m happy with the points,” he said. “We knew it was going to be more difficult on Sunday because we struggled a bit more with the tyre degradation and keeping the tyre last as long as the others. So it was a bit tricky. In the first stint, we reacted to Nico.
“We went on the medium, and he put on the soft. We’ll review, but it meant I had to go long. I got quite a lot of blue flags with Piastri, Norris and Verstappen. Every time, you lose two seconds. I don’t feel we got exactly what we wanted out of it there. We still managed to stick in the top 10 and get four points, which is very important for the team, especially at the end of that triple header.
“I think we all needed that. We had the option. Looking back, he managed to stay ahead of all these leaders, avoid these blue flags, went long, actually they were extremely fast but he just managed to clear the blue flags once the leaders boxed, he boxed as well and he was on the same lap and he didn’t have to everytime let them pass.
“I think they did well on that end, managed to stay in front of Isack but they managed to go long in the first stint and the medium and they had a big tyre delta so, yeah, a few things we need to review, but all in all we are very happy to be in P8. I think the quali was very important for us to score the points,” summed up Gasly.
Here’s Isack Hadjar on battle with Pierre Gasly
