Alpine brings home an unexpected result for Esteban Ocon, Pierre Gasly is outside the point zone. What happened to the team in Las Vegas?
The Las Vegas Grand Prix had some ups-and-downs for Alpine. In the Sin City, the French team scored some important points with an incredible comeback from Esteban Ocon. On the other hand, Pierre Gasly had a good qualifying session on Saturday, but finished the race outside the Top 10.
Ocon was out in Q1 due to a misunderstanding with Max Verstappen, almost causing a collision between the Alpine and the Red Bull. He started the race in p16 on Saturday night. During the chaos of the first lap, he succeeded to gain eight positions in the first lap. After that, the French driver had to manage the tyres while sustaining a competitive race pace, especially after the pitstop for hard compounds.
His teammate, Pierre Gasly, made it into Q3 and qualified 5th. He later climbed up the 4th place due to Carlos’ Sainz penalty. Gasly also had a good race pace in the first stint with medium tyres. But things started to get tricky after that. Number 10 pitted for the hard tyres on lap 17, but paid the graining. Tyre management costed him some positions, including against Ocon at lap 34 for 5th place.
At the end, the two Alpines crossed the finish line in 4th place for Esteban Ocon and 11th place for Pierre Gasly. The first one gained 12 points for the team, 6th in the Championship.
P16 👉🏼 P4!!!! VIVA LAS VEGAS!! pic.twitter.com/TXz6IkVVEG
— Esteban Ocon (@OconEsteban) November 19, 2023
The team words after Las Vegas
After the Grand Prix, Ocon thanked his team for the best result possible and the incredible comeback.
“We had to be patient, we did a clean race and the tyre management was really important. I did some good overtaking and it’s a satisfaction to finish forth in these amazing places”
–Esteban Ocon on renaultgroup.com
Gasly was, understandably, not satisfied with his result and said that they have some things to analyze after the weekend. However, the French driver congratulated his teammate and the whole team for the points scored:
“It was a good weekend for the team with my fourth place in qualifying and Esteban’s in the race. We will analyse everything and we’ll come back in the fight next weekend in Abu Dhabi”
–Pierre Gasly on renaultgroup.com
Bruno Famin, Team Principal ad interim, said that the weekend in Vegas was gratifying for the whole team. The TP commented:
“If Saturday was a good day for Pierre, with a brilliant result on a single lap in qualifying, yesterday it is Esteban who drove beautifully, rising from 16th to fourth position and gaining twelve points” and then added “we have a few things to review regarding Pierre. As a team, we will carefully analyze this weekend’s performance before heading to Abu Dhabi for the final race of the season”
–Bruno Famin on renaultgroup.com
