Alpine drivers Franco Colapinto and Pierre Gasly have confirmed that a poor strategy was behind the team’s subpar performance at the Canadian GP.
Franco Colapinto enjoyed a competitive start to the Canadian GP, out-qualifying team-mate Pierre Gasly for the first time, starting 10th.
However, his race quickly unravelled after Alpine opted to pit the Argentinian early, having lost positions during his opening stint. Stuck on older tyres, Colapinto became a sitting duck to those around him, and he plummeted down the order.
Finishing a disappointing 13th, Colapinto put the blame for his poor race down to strategy calls, unhappy with his early pitstop when speaking to media after the race.
“I think we maximised what we’ve done today. It just didn’t go our way, I think, strategy-wise. It was tricky to know [if] we were doing the wrong thing, but I think we definitely were doing the wrong stuff.”
“At the beginning of the race, stopping early with so many cars starting on [the] hard [tyre], and the team mates of the guys in front making the race slow for them – it just put us in a really bad position, killing the tyres.
“I had really slow pace after that pit stop with the dirty air and [it was] very tricky to overtake, just power [limited] on the straights and it just made our race very tricky. We went a bit backwards.
“It was tough out there today, I think still [there were] some things learned and some things to take, but we need to focus on the next one.”
Despite his challenges, when asked, Colapinto confirmed he had his best weekend of his Alpine tenure at the Canadian GP.
“Yeah, it feels like that,” he said. “It’s just that when you start in the points you want to stay there, and it feels like we didn’t do the right things today to try and stay [there], and that’s the only thing.”
Pierre Gasly fails to rescue his Canadian GP
Following his pitlane start after Alpine made changes to his car under Parc Ferme, Gasly faced an uphill struggle.
He failed to make progress and finished 15th. The Frenchman highlighted the power deficiency of the Renault power unit as the cause of his issues during the Canadian GP.
“We tried with the strategy – to be fair, we tried everything we could,” Gasly said. “[We were] just very slow in the straights, so we need to review exactly what we could have done better.
“I think we had some pace, it’s just been a very frustrating afternoon, being stuck behind cars, and unfortunately we’re just slower than them in the straights and it made it very, very tricky to pass, so we’ll review it.”
Gasly had an eventful afternoon, being forced onto the grass before the final chicane by Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin. Although he continued with his car undamaged, the incident encapsulated the frustrations of his afternoon. Stroll received a ten-second time penalty for the incident.
Speaking about the crash, Gasly said: “We kind of got side-by-side into the last corner. I feel like he could have done a slightly better job to give me a bit more room – not talking about much, I know we’re both at the limit and we’re talking a few centimetres.
“But unfortunately it put me in the grass – I had to try to cut the chicane and get back on track. I think bigger picture is just [that it was] a bit of a frustrating afternoon, not being able to race.”
