Pierre Gasly claimed a surprise P5 in qualifying in Las Vegas, a result that exceeded Alpine’s own expectations and a performance Gasly hopes he can carry into Saturday’s night’s race.
Gasly was a lowly 15th in Friday’s FP2 and slumped to P17 in Saturday’s final practice, while Esteban Ocon’s results were hardly better.
The performances didn’t bode well for the remainder of Alpine’s weekend in the gambling capital of the world, especially as Gasly admitted to his team purposefully compromising its Las Vegas GP to a certain extent by conducting a series of full scale “experiments” with its A523 as it looks to gain a head’s up on 2024.
"So far it's been pretty tricky," commented Gasly after FP2. "On my side of the garage, we're doing some experiments for next year's car, so we're trying different set-ups and trying to get some answers and direction for next year.
"Interesting, not the most comfortable so far, but hopefully we can get something out of it."
What he “got out of it” was a very strong performance in Q3 that put him fifth in the pecking order and fourth on Saturday evening’s grid as a beneficiary of Carlos Sainz’s 10-place grid penalty.
“I’m very pleased with the team effort today especially as our expectation was much lower than what we have achieved,” Gasly said.
“We proved the predictions wrong and hopefully we can do the same tomorrow where we start fourth because of Carlos’s [Sainz] penalty.
“The car felt really good, I felt comfortable and that is so important, especially at a street track where you need to feel in sync with everything.
“I was able to push to the limit and the laps today were probably my best of the season. We will see what we can do tomorrow.
“We have to stay focused as it’s a new track, conditions will be cool and tricky and we just have to be ready. The target is to score some big points.”
On the other side of the Alpine garage, the atmosphere was gloomy, with a frustrated Ocon bemoaning the congestion out on the track that had undermined his efforts in Q1.
“Today’s result is hard to swallow and, again, things have not gone our way,” he said. “It is never easy exiting in Q1, especially with the pace we were able to demonstrate.
“Looking at the data, we could’ve comfortably progressed through to Q2, so it is even more frustrating not to be able to capitalise on the performance of our car.
“I hit traffic on my first lap and on my second lap I lost around seven tenths following an incident at Turn 1 with Max [Verstappen], losing time and momentum.
“After that, I kept pushing the rest of the lap and almost improved but, unfortunately, we were out.
“There are positives to take from today and our car is fast here so there is plenty to fight for tomorrow and, as always, we will give it all we have to achieve a good result.”
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