A week ago, Alpine arrived in Austin for the United States Grand Prix hopeful that some upgrades to the A524 would bring improved performance. “We have a couple of upgrades coming and I think it will be important to finish in Abu Dhabi in a definitely better position that we are in. Whether it will be good enough to fight for points, I don’t know. Obviously, I hope so,” Pierre Gasly told me on the Wednesday ahead of the United States Grand Prix. “But as long as I just see whatever we’re working on actually delivers on track, then it brings some confidence into the tools and development we are doing and that will mean that what we’re doing for next year will also bring us in a much better, much better spot.”
Gasly certainly seems in a much better spot since those upgrades arrived.
The Alpine driver stormed into Q3 ahead of the United States Grand Prix, qualifying seventh and starting sixth in that race after George Russell started from the pit lane. While Gasly did not bring home points in Austin, his qualifying performance last week was a sign the team was moving in the right direction.
That continued Saturday in Mexico City. Similar to his performance in Austin, Gasly charged into Q3, putting his game near the top of the timing sheets on multiple occasions in both Q1 and Q2. Gasly finished the day sitting eighth on the grid, in position for points on Sunday.
“It was an amazing Qualifying session for us and I’m very happy to be in Q3 for the second race in a row,” said Gasly in the team’s post-qualifying media report. “We made a lot of changes between Free Practice 3 and Qualifying, as we were last on the timesheets, struggling with the car and just generally lacking grip. The team did a great job, so credit to everyone for persevering and finding those improvements.
“It is clear that this car, with our recent upgrades, has potential and it seems that we are operating within a small window, which we must continue to understand. We were just 0.006 seconds from another position today but, still, I’m pleased with our turnaround and how we were able to put together some strong laps,” added Gasly.
However, now the mission is to turn a good Saturday into a good Sunday, something that eluded Gasly a week ago.
“We’ve put ourselves in a good position on the grid for tomorrow. Last week, we had a strong Saturday but struggled on Sunday, and hopefully we have learnt from that and can be in the fight for points.”
