Styria [Austria], July 5 : In the Austrian Grand Prix race on Sunday, Alpine F1 team driver Pierre Gasly finished the race in the 10th position therefore managing to score points for his team but he said that McLaren was extremely fast on the race day.
Alpine driver Pierre Gasly was left with mixed feelings in the immediate aftermath of the Austrian Grand Prix, having returned to the points-paying positions but been taken aback by the progress of rivals McLaren.
After a mixed start to the season, Alpine showed signs of challenging the front-runners via a podium finish with Esteban Ocon in Monaco and a second-row grid slot with Gasly in the following round in Spain.
According to the official website of Formula 1, Pierre Gasly said, "McLaren was extremely fast this weekend, which is not really a good sign for us, but at the same time it should motivate us. It shows that it's possible to make big gains. It's all in our hands and I know we've got upgrades planned on the next few races, so [I'm] looking forward to seeing what it brings."
He added, "I think there are definitely some positives. I think we maximised the race and the points that we could score today. On the other side, it feels like we want more and we want to be fighting closer to that top five. At the moment, we're just missing these two or three-tenths to Fernando [Alonso] and the Mercedes that finished just ahead of us. We've got to keep pushing, keep developing the package we've got."
Gasly said, "We know what the weaknesses of the car are and where we need to improve at the moment, but it's not that easy to fix. Hopefully, some of these upgrades are going to help that."
Pierre Gasly's teammate Esteban Ocon didn't have a good race as he finished in the 14th position and failed to score points for his team.
Ocon, meanwhile, was left to rue a "frustrating" afternoon at the wheel that also included a five-second time penalty for a near-miss with Williams rookie Logan Sargeant in the pit lane.
As per the official website of Formula 1, Esteban Ocon said, "First of all, [we were] lacking pace compared to usual weekends," he commented. "I think we struggled a lot more with the car on dry conditions this weekend compared to Montreal or other races like Barcelona, where we were easily in the points."
"We got some contact with Yuki Tsunoda in the beginning, I don't think there was damage on the car, but we need to check that exactly. And the unsafe release penalty, which is completely our fault as a team, we got it wrong there, we got five seconds."
Alpine sit fifth in the constructors' standings heading to the British Grand Prix, 107 points behind fourth-placed Ferrari and 18 clear of McLaren.
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