AUSTIN — Alpine showed up to the United States Grand Prix in Austin with a special theme livery, an “Indiana Jones and the Great Circle” paint scheme with shades of orange to promote the upcoming video game release from Bethesda Softworks. But that orange color drew many comparisons to McLaren’s MCL38.
However, Pierre Gasly’s performance during qualifying Saturday here at Circuit of the Americas could draw similar comparisons.
Gasly stunned the entire paddock, advancing all the way to Q3, but beyond the mere fact that the Alpine driver made it to the third segment of qualifying was how he advanced. Gasly was often at the top of the timing sheets, spending time up in P1 in both Q1 and in Q2.
It was a performance that surprised Gasly himself.
“It’s a fantastic surprise,” said Gasly to the media, including SB Nation, following qualifying.
“I’m very happy because we made quite a lot of changes after the sprint. And on a sprint weekend, it’s not easy because you don’t have much time to actually figure out, especially when you’ve got a new package and new parts on the car, you don’t have much time to understand or try things and we made quite a few changes setup wise and the car was just in a much better place,” added the Alpine driver.
“So very happy for the guys, to see that the parts have some good potential.”
Gasly made it clear that Alpine was truly in the mix, and he was not just scraping by from segment to segment by the skin of his teeth.
“Clearly today we were in the mix and every single lap I was putting out there, put us in a decent position,” said Gasly. “So it wasn’t only one lap.
“That’s what I’m most pleased about.”
However, Gasly tempered his comments when the discussion turned to tomorrow’s United States Grand Prix, setting a more reasonable set of expectations for his performance in the main event.
“We got [George] Russell and [Oscar} Piastri in front, and they’re in a different league, I think, at the moment.”
The Alpine driver then outlined how Saturday’s performance shows signs of progress, much-needed progress, for the team. “Looking at the last few races we were fighting to get out of Q1. Now we made it to Q3, I think that’s my best qualifying of the year,” said Gasly.
“So I think before looking at the top four, we’ll look at our battle, and I think [Fernando] Alonso, we’ll be able to fight him. The Haas look very strong all weekend,” added Gasly. “But yeah, I’m sure we’ll be there.”
Gasly concluded his comments with an eye to the future. He noted that Alpine is not fighting for any “important position” in either the Drivers’ or the Constructors’ Championship, but any progress that can be made next year can help put the team in a much better place at the start of 2025, than they were in 2024.
“We’re not really fighting for any important position in the driver or the team championship. So it’s anything we can take that allows us to be fighting for points next year,” said Gasly.
“Definitely positive. That’s what the guys gave me today.”
