Alpine driver Pierre Gasly admitted that he hadn't been expecting to feature quite so high up the timings at the end of Friday's practice sessions for this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix.
Gasly was fourth quickest in FP2, within two tenths of pace setter Lewis Hamilton, putting him ahead of Red Bull driver Max Verstappen when the chequered flag came out.
“I must say it was a very, very good FP2,” beamed Gasly afterward. “It came a little bit as a surprise. We didn’t really expect to have such good pace. We’ll take that!"
"The end result - finishing in fourth place - probably flatters us, and it was certainly a surprise. But a pleasant surprise
Alpine are current down in eighth in the constructors standings after a troubled start to the 2024 season, but they have been rebuilding their confidence in recent outings and had both cars finish in the points in Montreal.
They're hoping for the same again in Barcelona, with Esteban Ocon also finishing FP2 in the top ten heading into Saturday's final practice and crucial qualifying sessions.
“This morning we had some issues on my car on the aero side," Gasly said. "But we managed to fix it in FP2, and straight from the start it felt good.
"I was happy with the lap and quite positively surprised," he admitted. "It put a smile on my face when I saw where we were.
"In terms of feeling there are still a few things which I’m not very comfortable with in the car that I’d like to improve for tomorrow, but we’ve got definitely a good baseline to work with."
"It was hot out there, there was some degradation and I think we kind of expect conditions to be similar to last year," he said. "I haven’t seen yet how it looks compared to the other guys."
"We’ll work to make sure we manage to fine tune and continue to improve for tomorrow," he added.
Ocon was equally puzzled but just delighted to see the team performing so well today. “It’s interesting. A little bit unexpected, really. We need to understand why it’s working so well at the moment.
“Obviously we do a lot of testing here in Barcelona and it’s interesting just to figure out where the car is in the optimum state. Most of the development is done with this layout.
"It shows that if we have that pace tomorrow, that the car is working with this kind of layout," he pointed out. "We’ll keep trying, keep digging and hopefully find some pace from tomorrow."
Hopefully the all-French squad won't be too distracted by events elsewhere in Europe this evening in which France are set to take on the Netherlands in the group stage of the European football championships.
“So far it’s been a positive Friday," said Gasly. "France is playing tonight so hopefully it can remain a positive Friday to the end!"
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