Alpine made a terrible impression in the Bahrain Qualifying: I'm in the last row!

Qualifications to forget

The pilots ofAlpine, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly, had been very candid on the eve of the first weekend of the season in Bahrain about the potential of the new A524, admitting that the inaugural weekend of 2024 would be complex. Few, however, would have imagined the French duo even in the last row.

During Q1, in fact, the objective of being able to get through the round to at least enter Q2 proved to be a failure for both, with Ocon 19th and Gasly in twentieth and last positionjust over a second behind the best time of the session set in that case by Carlos Sainz's Ferrari.

Gasly's comment

There is therefore bitterness in the Enstone team and in the words of Gasly, who commented on his first qualifying of the season as follows: “We knew it wasn't going to be an easy start to the season and, obviously, it's always hard to accept when you go out in Q1 – he has declared – from me, probably today we didn't make the most of the session. The out lap was very messed up with traffic and the tires were not in a good window to get an optimal time. Said this, it would have been difficult to advance much. We know where we are at and the team is pushing hard and working hard to continue to improve the car. Above all, we are united as a team. For tomorrow, on race day, many things can always happen. We will try to maximize everything we have in our hands and get the best. We will continue to push all the way.”

Trust in the team

Ocon also believes in the unity of the team and everyone's commitment to improve performance, despite knowing that the tests for the Bahrain GP would have been complex from the start: “We expected qualifying to be difficult and so it was – He admitted – It's important to understand where we need to improve, which is something we identified very early on with this car. As I said on the radio, I have faith in the team to continue to progress. We improved the car throughout the tests and practice sessions this weekend, but it wasn't enough to get through to the second part of qualifying. Tomorrow will be a long race and I think we will be closer to the others than in the short runs. We will try to have a clean race, advance in the standings and see where we finish.”