Team Talk - Sunday in Barcelona

Alpine

Pierre Gasly

“It was a more challenging Sunday for us but, all in all, it is a good outcome for us to score points today. It has been a challenging start to the season, quite a difficult triple-header in recent weeks for us and we knew, as a team, after Monaco, we needed to bounce back here in Barcelona with some points. Qualifying was really good but we seem to struggle more on Sundays. We have plenty to review from today’s race as I was pretty relieved to see the Safety Car near the end and the team did a great job to make the right call to give me a free gap to pit for fresh tyres. We did the best we could and I know we will reflect together as a team. We have to keep working hard and really aim to fix some of our weaker areas going into Canada.”

Franco Colapinto

“It was a disappointing afternoon and a tough race. We had better pace today than earlier in the weekend, which is a positive but it is a tricky circuit to overtake so it was generally a hard one to manage and make any progress. The tyres were suffering a lot in the dirty air, which made things even more difficult. It goes to show how important track position is in races and I know there is more to improve on that front on my side especially maximising the car’s potential on low fuel. I look forward to continuing the hard work with the team over the coming days and there is much more to learn heading into Montréal in a couple of weeks.”

Flavio Briatore

“As a positive, we come away from Barcelona with some points after a tough weekend for the team. We know we are not where we want to be with the car and that has clearly shown in the last three back-to-back races. Pierre drove a solid race and the strategists made a good call to give him a free pit-stop when the Safety Car came out, which meant he had fresher tyres to hold his position to the end. Franco’s afternoon was always going to be tough starting at the back and had a disappointing race, not progressing as much as we hoped. As a team, we must regroup and dig deep to get ourselves out of this position.”