Pierre Gasly launched his Bahrain Grand Prix from dead last on the grid, but the Alpine charger was nevertheless confident that his car's race pace could carry him into the top ten, which it did.
The Frenchman was determined to celebrate his debut with his new team with a good qualifying result followed by a solid drive on Sunday at Sakhir.
But things didn't pan out as expected in the Saturday evening session, with Gasly the slowest of all the runners in the field in Q1. His inability to get his A523 up to speed in qualifying was as unexpected as it was unexplainable, especially as teammate Esteban Ocon had gone over 0.6s quicker in the segment.
Despite the disappointment, Gasly remained positive and confident that his race pace would allow him to carve his way through at least half the field on race day, which it did.
"I did say that I was going to go for the points, but we knew it would be a difficult task," he said after Sunday's race.
"I must say I am extremely pleased to finish that first race for Alpine in the points, especially starting from where we were yesterday.
"It was an off day, and things didn’t come together, but I was confident in our race car and [it's a] really positive race."
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Gasly's strong drive was supported by an opportunistic three-stop strategy devised by the Alpine pitwall that brought him into the top ten on lap 40 of 57.
He then gained another spot by overtaking Alex Albon's Williams, finishing thereafter hot on the heels of Alfa Romeo's Valtteri Bottas.
Alpine's self-proclaimed target this season is to finish fourth in the Constructors' standings. But with Aston Martin emerging as a genuine top-five contender, Gasly knows that his team will have its work cut out for it to reach its target.
©Alpine
He's confident however that the Enstone squad has a good base to build on.
"Starting from where we were, [I] don’t think there was more to get from it," commented the former AlphaTauri driver.
"We need to work. I must say the top four, now that Aston is able to finish on the podium, we’ve got the big three also, but I think we’ve got a really good base.
"[I] lost a lot of time in the traffic at the start of the race, so starting in the right position should give us definitely more chances, and I am definitely optimistic for the coming races."
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