Team Talk - Sunday in Bahrain

Alpine

Pierre Gasly

“I am very happy for the entire team that we scored our first points of the season in seventh place. We lost a position on the last lap to Max [Verstappen] so that is a little disappointing but he won last week so we can really only take the positives from that effort. It was a good start from fourth on the grid and we stayed in the front pack on the first stint. We were a little unfortunate with the timing of the Safety Car after our second stop for Hard tyres. From there it was flat out to the end, just trying to keep Max behind, and we just ran out of tyres to lose the position. Now we focus straight on Jeddah where hopefully we can be competitive. The car feels good in high-speed corners, I was impressed with how it performed here, so hopefully the same again in Saudi Arabia next weekend and we can repeat our level of competitiveness.”

Jack Doohan

“The result today is disappointing but I am happy that we opened our points tally with Pierre finishing in seventh place. The Soft and Medium tyres felt strong in the race and we were up to ninth place after the first two stints on those compounds and it looked positive for us. We boxed for the Hard to cover some other cars but the Safety Car was deployed at an unfortunate time, which gave some other cars the chance to change to fresher, softer tyres. It was very difficult to keep them behind, we struggled with the rear a bit on that compound, and then we had a time penalty at the end for track limits. We will now continue to keep on building on the progress the team has made this weekend and we have the next race coming up in Jeddah to look forward to in a few days’ time.”

Oliver Oakes, Team Principal

“As a team we should be satisfied leaving Bahrain with our first points of the season. It’s nice to get off the mark and credit to the effort across Enstone and Viry. The timing of the Safety Car certainly did not help, leaving both cars a bit exposed towards the end with us having pitted before the Safety Car. Pierre gave it everything to try and keep Max behind. It’s always tough to lose a position on the last lap, but he drove a great race and brought home some much needed points for the team. Jack showed promising pace early in the race and across the weekend. In the race, he struggled managing the Hard tyres, dropping back there unfortunately in that last stint. We come away from the weekend with points knowing we have to keep improving in certain areas into Jeddah next week.”