Gasly beats (again!) Verstappen
After securing a top-10 in Melbourne and SQ3 in China, Alpine showed further encouraging signs in Shanghai Qualifying. Pierre Gasly is once again the protagonist: the Frenchman confirmed his great form by securing a good seventh position on the grid, a result that testifies to the progress made by the Enstone team and keeps them in the fight for the points zone.
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For Gasly, it is also a test of pride, having once again beaten both Red Bulls, including that Max Verstappen who rewrote F1 records until a few months ago. The #10, however, wants to focus on the race, also because in the Sprint, Alpine recorded difficulties related to energy management and tire degradation, factors that could weigh heavily, especially with a heavier car.
Gasly’s words
“I am very satisfied with the qualifying performance, which allowed us to secure our second top-10 qualification of the weekend. I am really happy with the work done as a team and it seems we are moving in the right direction. Considering the situation last weekend, this makes me optimistic for tomorrow’s Grand Prix and also for the next races“, was Gasly’s comment. “Qualifying went well, we improved lap by lap, while the morning was more complicated because in the Sprint we had heavy tire degradation. This is an aspect we need to work on for tomorrow if we want to compete with the cars around us. The gaps in the race and in qualifying are very small and we are in the middle of a very compact group, every detail counts. Hope to have an advantage tomorrow and translate the progress made this weekend into more points for the team“.
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Colapinto’s words
“Compared to yesterday and the position we started from in the Sprint, I feel much more optimistic about the car“, added Franco Colapinto, just five thousandths away from Q3. “We couldn’t change much overnight due to parc fermé and we struggled in the Sprint due to some graining. But we didn’t give up, we worked hard as a team and in the afternoon we turned the situation around. Yesterday there were many things we didn’t understand about the car and the work we did in the evening with the engineers and Pierre translated into a better result today. When you are so close to entering Q3, you are still slightly disappointed. I had some clipping issues coming out of the last corner and I locked the wheels in some places, so the potential was definitely there. We are close to the points“.
