Team Talk - Sunday in Jeddah

Alpine F1

Esteban Ocon (FRA) Alpine F1 Team A523. 19.03.2023. Formula 1 World Championship, Rd 2, Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Race Day. - www.xpbimages.com, EMail: requests@xpbimages.com © Copyright: Coates / XPB Images
Pierre Gasly
"It’s definitely satisfying to make it two points finishes from my first two races with the team. I think finishing in eighth and ninth was the best we could achieve today, though. We’re making positive steps; we’re learning things each time we get in the car and we must continue to apply that knowledge to keep improving the overall package. On my side, there’s more to come, especially in extracting the maximum in Qualifying, which will allow us better track position for the Race. I’m looking forward to debriefing with the team, continuing my learning and going again in Australia where we want to show further improvements.”

Esteban Ocon
“Overall, I would say it’s been a reasonable race for the team. The final result reflects our performance in the race and eighth place is the maximum we could have achieved today. Having both cars in the points is definitely positive, especially after Bahrain, but we must not be completely satisfied with where we are at the moment. Our car has potential and we will continue learning and building to catch up to our competitors. We want to challenge for positions higher up the grid, and we will keep working hard to do that. We will debrief on this weekend and our attention will quickly turn to Australia where we’ll aim for more.”

Otmar Szafnauer, team principal
“Today’s race highlighted many things: areas where we know there are positives and other areas where we need to improve. Finishing with Esteban in eighth and Pierre in ninth was probably the best we could achieve today and we’re making steps in the right direction towards our targets. We’re not where we want to be right now, that is clear, and we have a lot of hard work ahead of us if we’re to take the fight further up the grid. We’ve reeled in some of the teams who were in front of us in the championship last year and we must continue to chip away at that gap and close it. As a team we’ll debrief on this weekend as there are many positives as well as some finer details for us to improve on. We have a good batch of upgrades coming up as per our development plan and we look forward to Australia in two weeks’ time where we aim to apply our learnings and again come away with a good team result.”