Team Talk - Sunday in Baku

Alpine F1

Pierre Gasly
“On one side, I would say that was one of my best races of the season from a driving point of view. It was a good start from eighteenth on the grid and we were on the limit every corner, every lap and really extracted the maximum from the car. There was not much more we could have done, finishing twelfth at the chequered flag. On the other side, though, simply, we were just too slow this weekend. We took a gamble on strategy, running long in the hope that there might be some late action. It came too late in the end so we could not benefit from it. We made good steps forward from Friday but, clearly, it was a challenging weekend for the team. We will get on top of it and we need to come back with a better weekend performance in Singapore.”

Esteban Ocon
“It has been a disappointing weekend and a tricky race for us today here in Baku. We now want to turn the page quickly and our focus must be towards the next race, which comes in a few days’ time in Singapore. As a team, we will regroup and concentrate on maximising all available running time to build the performance and be race ready and get a chance to fight in the points.”

Oliver Oakes, team principal
“As a team we leave Baku frustrated; a weekend we need to quickly put behind us. From where we started, with one car at the back and one car in the Pit Lane, it was always going to be tough to progress through the field. We ran both cars long on the Hard tyres anticipating a late Safety Car or Red Flag, which did not pay off in the end, even with the VSC towards the latter stage of the race. Ultimately, we did not have the reliability to compete this weekend and it’s something we need to analyse and quickly address, especially as we’ve dropped a place in the Championship standings. We’ll look to bounce back in Singapore, where we need to re-find some of the performance and form we had around the summer break.”