Gasly’s qualifying form with updated Alpine boosts US GP hopes
Pierre Gasly delivered one of his best performances of the season during qualifying for the United States Grand Prix, securing seventh place on the grid for Sunday’s race.
The French driver hailed the impact of Alpine’s new upgrade package, which played a key role in boosting the team's competitiveness at the Circuit of The Americas in Austin.
Gasly’s P7 result marked just his third Q3 appearance this season and his first since Zandvoort two months ago. The strong showing also equaled his best grid position of the year, previously achieved at the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona back in June.
“Yeah, I’m very happy. It’s been quite a long time since we made it to Q3, and I must say it was very enjoyable driving the car – we made quite a lot of changes after the Sprint,” commented the Frenchman, buoyed by his result.
“[We’re] still exploring this new package and the directions that we wanted to explore, and I think clearly there was a big step in terms of control and potential, and it was just so much nicer to drive and I think quite surprising to have found that much performance.
“But, yeah, it’s definitely encouraging for the future.”
While Gasly is optimistic about Sunday’s race, he remains cautious about the stiff competition from rival teams.
Starting alongside him in eighth will be Fernando Alonso in the Aston Martin, and just behind in ninth is Kevin Magnussen’s Haas.
Both teams have shown flashes of strong pace throughout the weekend.
“We saw with the Aston, Fernando was behind I think in the Sprint, we saw we were kind of battling with each other,” Gasly said. “Haas were very, very fast, so we’ll see tomorrow how they do.
“But starting from seventh, for sure we’ve definitely got to capitalise on it and try to score points as well. We haven’t been finishing in the top 10 for a while, I know it will definitely be a nice reward for the guys after bringing this new package.”
Gasly was the recipient in Austin of Alpine’s upgrades, with Esteban Ocon, who qualified P13, still running previous-spec components.
“The car was a bit trickier to drive this afternoon [in qualifying],” said Ocon. “However, on a positive side, we can see that the upgrades brought here this weekend seem to be working and came alive in this Qualifying session and that is positive going forward.
“On my side, the car was also more competitive than what we’ve seen and finishing in 13th position is a step up considering that cars around me had upgrades.
“We start the race in front of some of the cars we were battling with in the Sprint race earlier today, so we’ll hope for a good race start and a good strategy for tomorrow’s race.”
Alpine currently sits ninth in the constructors’ standings with 13 points, just three points behind Williams.
Gasly’s strong performance in Austin, coupled with Alpine’s promising upgrades, could offer the team a much-needed boost as they chase down their rivals in the closing stages of the season.
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