Fourth row for the Argentine
Alpine fifth force: this is the verdict of Friday in Miami where both Franco Colapinto and Pierre Gasly managed to enter SQ3 in the Sprint Qualifying. The Argentine clawed his way to the fourth row, putting behind the Red Bull of Isack Hadjar, Pierre Gasly finished in tenth position. Below are their statements.
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Franco Colapinto: “I am happy with today’s result and how we achieved it. We managed to turn the situation around starting from a difficult position, because it was quite tough and it took us a while to understand how the car behaved at the start of the day. We found some improvements and finally felt in a good rhythm, doing good laps and increasing speed and confidence in every session. It is important to do this especially in a Sprint weekend, which can be difficult. It was nice to have the end-of-season break to reset and restart, and today is a really positive result for the team, with me and Pierre in SQ3 and with a set of Soft tires to save for tomorrow. We worked well with the engineers during the break to understand where we can improve and we hope this is a sign that the hard work is paying off. The pace looks strong and we hope it holds up tomorrow and for the rest of the weekend.”
Pierre Gasly: “I am a bit disappointed with today’s final result, because I felt the package had much more potential if we had a bit more time to solve some problems encountered in the free practice. I didn’t feel completely comfortable from the first lap, there was something that wasn’t working properly. It seems the wheels slip a lot, a problem we will definitely try to solve before tomorrow. This is the nature of Sprint events, where we only have one free practice session to identify and solve some problems before the first race of the weekend. However, the fact that both Franco and I are in SQ3 means it is a positive result for the team and everyone should be happy, especially because it shows we are able to be competitive on different circuits and that our package is in the fight for points. This is our goal for this weekend and we will do our best to solve some problems and try to climb further up the standings.”
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