Team Talk - Sunday in Suzuka

Alpine 

Pierre Gasly

“It was not our race today and there are definitely a few things for us to analyse. It felt like we did everything we could in terms of performance. The car felt good, well balanced and we know where we are lacking a bit of pace. It was an intense first lap, quite dicey with Fernando [Alonso] and we missed out on a place there even if it was a fun battle. We lost a bit of time at the pit-stop so we’ll review what happened there and we know how important track position is around here in terms of traffic and pace management. We gave it our best and it was not enough to be near the points. We have a good chance next week in Bahrain where the car seemed to perform well in pre-season testing. Conditions will be different to then, though, but it’s a chance to reset and hopefully we can come away with a much better outcome.”

Jack Doohan

“It was good to get another full race distance under my belt and continue to gain experience and understanding of the package. Given our starting position, we went more aggressive with tyre strategy with the Softs at the start, which allowed us to attack and gave us the best chance to move forward with the undercut. That also meant we ran a longer second stint on the Hard tyres [38 laps] and had to defend towards the end. I think we did well to keep Nico [Hülkenberg] at bay, but it was a pity we could not keep Carlos [Sainz] behind on the newer Softs. It was positive to move forward at a track that’s difficult to overtake and the race pace also felt strong despite no high fuel running. We will take a couple of days between races to rest and recover. I’m looking forward to going again in Bahrain where the conditions will be completely different again.”

Oliver Oakes, Team Principal

“It’s not been the smoothest weekend for the team here in Japan. We found some good steps in performance compared to the first two rounds. Still, it is not enough for us to score points with Pierre finishing thirteenth and Jack fifteenth. Jack did a good job to climb a number of positions. We go to Bahrain knowing we had a good pre-season test there and aim to continue making steps forwards.”