Team Talk - Sunday in Zandvoort

Alpine F1

Pierre Gasly
"It was such a fun race today and to come away with some points is always a nice feeling. I'm really happy with the progress we made as a team since Friday and, in the end, we managed to turn things around and come away as the best team after the top four. Off the line, I passed Fernando [Alonso] and Lance [Stroll] on the outside of Turn 1. That massively helped our race as I then had good track position and I could just manage the race and look after the tyres. After the pit-stop we had some overtakes to make and I had confidence in the car to brake and keep a good line on the outside of Turn 1. There were some exciting moves out there and we've come away with two points as a result. We are continuing to show signs of progress and hopefully we can keep that going."

Esteban Ocon
"It's a weekend for us to learn from as I came here with different expectations. Overall, a tricky race day and a tough weekend in general. Finishing in fifteenth was our end position and all I could achieve with cars ahead and traffic throughout on a track that is tough for overtaking. It is important for us to understand why we struggled here in particular and where we can improve, which we will do together as a team. On the other side, there are some positives to take away from Zandvoort where Pierre showed good pace and managed to score useful points for the team. We only have a couple of days to turn things around and come back stronger next week at Monza. I am looking forward to racing there again and see what some of the track changes might bring."

Oliver Oakes, Team Principal
"I'm pleased that the team comes away from Zandvoort with points on the board in a race where we were genuinely the fifth fastest team. We made good progress after a tricky Friday, which is credit to the work done overnight into Qualifying. There were good strategy calls in the race by extending the first stint, racing the Aston Martins and allowing the drivers to push to the end, so credit to them also. Before the race we were hoping to at least try and maintain position, knowing that would be difficult due to some cars being out of position behind us. Pierre drove a great race, crucially getting ahead of both Aston Martins early on and pulling off some good overtakes to pick up two crucial points for the team. Esteban's day was a little compromised from the start after a difficult Qualifying yesterday, and he also ultimately finished where he started on a track that's notoriously hard to overtake. With the double-header we don't have long to wait until Monza, which we expect to be a little trickier for us."