2023 Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix highlights

BWT Alpine F1 Team finished the 2023 Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix with Pierre Gasly fourteenth and Esteban Ocon fifteenth on the weekend filled with frustration and disappointment for the team.

In a race featuring little action or opportunity to progress up the field, the team turned to a bold strategy for both drivers to get ahead of the cars in front. Pierre made a pair of neat overtakes on Valtteri Bottas and Logan Sargeant into Turn 1 during the 51-lap race and, in the end, finished fourteenth on a two-stop Medium-Hard-Hard strategy.

Starting from the Pit Lane, Esteban remained on track until the penultimate lap of the race, when, for his mandatory pit stop, he pitted for new Soft tyres for his sole lap on the red compound to finish in fifteenth at the chequered flag.

The team looks ahead to next weekend’s Miami Grand Prix, looking for a more positive and representative outing at the Hard Rock Stadium-based circuit.

Esteban Ocon:

We gave it everything we could today, going for the Hail Mary strategy and hoping for a late Safety Car or incident, but things did not go our way. We can be proud of our efforts, pushing all the way to the end and extracting the most from the Hard tyres. At the end of the race, I had a scary moment when I came into the pit and saw people congregating in the Pit Lane even though the race had not ended. Fortunately, nothing happened, but we must make sure these scenarios don’t happen again. We were not where we wanted to be in terms of performance this weekend. And after a weekend of learning, we can review and come back stronger in Miami. I know we will do just that.

Pierre Gasly:

This is a weekend all of us are keen to quickly move on from as it’s been very frustrating for everyone in the team. We have to make sure this kind of performance is not repeated again. It is not where we should be, and we need to come back stronger for Miami next week on a more conventional track. Regarding my race, we tried something different in strategy and hoped for some fortune, but ultimately, we couldn’t do much more. I made some always-satisfying moves, but it’s much more rewarding when those overtakes are for points. I’m looking forward to racing in Miami next weekend.

Otmar Szafnauer, Team Principal

It’s been a bitterly disappointing weekend for the team in Baku, and we must not repeat this type of performance again. We very much started on the backfoot on Friday, and since then, we could not recover in any of the sessions. We were quite far off on car set-up on Friday during practice. With such limited running – notably with some reliability issues on both cars – we left ourselves with a mountain to climb for the remainder of the weekend. We must limit these problems going forward and begin all Grand Prix weekends on the front foot to ensure we give ourselves the best possible chance on Saturday and Sunday to score points. We demonstrated our race pace in Australia, and we have a better chance to validate our upgrade package in Miami. We must keep working hard as a team, keep up our understanding of how to maximise the most from our package and target a much-improved overall team performance next weekend Stateside.

Alpine F1 Team best pictures:

Pierre Gasly (FRA) Alpine F1 Team A523. Formula 1 World Championship, Rd 4, Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Saturday 29th April 2023. Baku City Circuit, Azerbaijan.

Esteban Ocon (FRA) Alpine F1 Team A523. Formula 1 World Championship, Rd 4, Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Saturday 29th April 2023. Baku City Circuit, Azerbaijan.

(L to R): Pierre Gasly (FRA) Alpine F1 Team and Esteban Ocon (FRA) Alpine F1 Team on the FanZone Stage. Formula 1 World Championship, Rd 4, Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Saturday 29th April 2023. Baku City Circuit, Azerbaijan.

Esteban Ocon (FRA) Alpine F1 Team A523. Formula 1 World Championship, Rd 4, Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Sunday 30th April 2023. Baku City Circuit, Azerbaijan.

Pierre Gasly (FRA) Alpine F1 Team A523. Formula 1 World Championship, Rd 4, Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Sunday 30th April 2023. Baku City Circuit, Azerbaijan.

Pierre Gasly (FRA) Alpine F1 Team A523 on the grid. Formula 1 World Championship, Rd 4, Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Sunday 30th April 2023. Baku City Circuit, Azerbaijan.

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