The first double Q3 entry was followed by the second double points: Alpine capitalized on the good starting position after a strong qualifying on Saturday in Barcelona and scored points with both drivers in a race for the second time in 2024. As in Canada two weeks ago, Pierre Gasly finished ninth, just ahead of teammate Esteban Ocon.
“It was a strong weekend, our best so far this season,” said a delighted Gasly after the race. The Frenchman almost achieved the team’s best individual result of 2024 with eighth place. But Sergio Perez, who was driving on a three-stop strategy, caught Gasly in turn 1 on the last lap.
Gasly praises Alpine: result under normal conditions
“Unfortunately he overtook us on the last lap, which is always annoying,” said an annoyed Gasly, who had already scored points for the third race in a row. At the same time, the 28-year-old also put things into perspective: “At the end of the day, we finished the race just behind the four fastest cars under normal conditions based on pure pace. So there are definitely some positives to take away from it.”
Team boss Bruno Famin agreed: “It’s a bit disappointing that we couldn’t hold on to eighth place on the last lap, which is good because it shows that we want more and we will be able to achieve more shortly.”
Gasly vs Perez: Wrong tire choice at Alpine?
For the top 4 teams it was enough Barcelona, however, is not yet the case. In the first half of the race, the two Alpines were battling with McLaren driver Oscar Piastri for seventh place, but after a late first pit stop from softs to mediums, he left Ocon behind on the 29th of 66 laps and then Gasly behind five laps later.
The battle with Perez, however, dragged on throughout the race due to the Mexican’s three-stop strategy. In the final stint, in which the Alpine drivers like Carlos Sainz and George Russell came in for their second stop earlier and switched to hard tires, Gasly and Ocon were powerless against Perez on fresher soft tires. Ocon was due on lap 51, and Gasly on the final lap.
Could Gasly’s eighth place have been saved with a later second stop and a final stint on softs instead of hards? Not necessarily, at least Gasly himself said: “It wouldn’t have changed our race massively. I’m not even sure if the softs were better.”
Ocon in Spain with underbody damage: Abnormally strange
While Gasly fought with Perez until the end, Ocon crossed the finish line a clear 9.864 seconds behind his teammate. “It’s a very positive day after such a difficult and long race,” said Ocon afterwards. “We suspect damage to the front underbody. The car was very difficult to drive in this race, abnormally strange.”
The origin of this possible damage is still unclear. The Alpine pit box could only identify a loss of downforce. “We have to investigate whether it was damage, whether we picked up debris,” announced Ocon. “Because there was no contact. I just fell back, which was difficult. And in the end I almost lost position to Nico (Hülkenberg; ed.).”
In the end, Ocon held on to P10 with a lead of 2.326 seconds over Hülkenberg, but even if he had lost position on the track, the last point would probably not have been in danger, as Hülkenberg was carrying the burden of a 5-second penalty for exceeding the speed limit in the pit lane.
Ocon: Would have been last on such days in early 2024
“We were sliding a lot, we had a lot of oversteer,” Ocon said, describing the problems. Given these problems, the result tastes all the sweeter, Ocon continued: “Because on these kinds of days earlier in the year, we would have been last and not in the points!”
Just as the origin of the Ocon damage is Alpine is not yet completely clear about the origin of the strong performance in Spain. On Thursday, the two drivers of the Renault factory team were expecting a difficult weekend and on Saturday they demanded that the team search for an in-depth explanation for the surprising performance upturn.
“I have an idea of what it is and the team also knows what it could be. And if that’s the case, we should be OK for the next three races,” said Ocon, raising hopes of more Alpine points. “If it works for the next three races, we should know what it is,” the 27-year-old announced at the same time.
Alpine in Barcelona without internal team dispute
Despite Alpine’s recent significantly better performances compared to the start of the season, Gasly and Ocon warned on Sunday in Barcelona against excessive euphoria. The team from Enstone, Great Britain, is still clearly lagging behind its own expectations. “There is still a big gap between us and the guys in front of us. It seems as if these four teams are even further ahead,” said Gasly.
Unlike the last two weekends, this time Alpine did not have any internal disputes in addition to the points win. Although Gasly briefly fell behind Ocon due to a weak first pit stop, he overtook his teammate again on lap 17 without any major disputes.
The renewed Alpine points are also worth their weight in gold for the extremely close battle in the second half of the Formula 1 table. With the additional three points, Alpine was able to leave Haas behind and travels to the second stop of the triple-header in Austria in seventh place in the constructors’ standings.
Alpine wasn’t the only one to celebrate on Sunday in Spain. Max Verstappen took his seventh Grand Prix victory of the year and extended his lead in the World Championship. And that was despite the fact that the world champion once again didn’t seem to have the fastest car. You can read what Verstappen had to say about his victory here: