Alpine Racing
Esteban started from P12 on New Mediums and finished P18 with the Fastest Lap of the Grand Prix: Pit Stops on Lap 31 for New Hards and Lap 51 for New Softs. Fastest Lap: 1min 37.330secs.
Pierre started from P6 on New Mediums and finished P12: Pit Stop on Lap 18 for New Hards. Fastest Lap: 1min 38.311secs.
Esteban Ocon
Unfortunately, today, my race was compromised by Turn 1 after being hit from behind, which caused me to spin, and I fell to the back of the field. I managed to recover a few positions throughout the race. However, we were not in contention for much else after that. At the end of the race, we decided to pit and attempt the Fastest Lap on Softs, which we achieved. We have positives to take from this weekend. The upgrades have shown to be working, especially in Qualifying yesterday, so I look forward to the team continuing to work in this direction and improve the car. Next up is Mexico City; hopefully, we can be in a better position to be in contention for points.
Pierre Gasly
It’s been a frustrating afternoon where we did not fully extract the maximum potential. We had too many sub-optimal situations throughout the race, which is a pity as we started in a perfect position and had much higher ambitions than finishing outside the points. Things slipped away, and we could have managed our race better, which is something we will review for next time. We covered the early pit stop of Magnussen and then had a slow stop, but, generally, we lacked pace on the hard tyre to be in a stronger position. It looks like our rivals are just a bit quicker now, and we must keep understanding our package and extracting everything from it. We have Mexico City next week – a unique track where we have another opportunity to learn and progress.
Oliver Oakes – Team Principal
We can come away from this weekend in Austin with some positives, particularly with how our upgrade performed and converting that into the team’s best-starting position of the season, lining up sixth on the grid. It’s a shame we could not capitalise on our excellent starting position; we struggled in the second stint and need to analyse that. The team has been working incredibly hard on pit stops this season, and there have been many noticeable improvements in recent races. These things happen in racing; we win and lose as a team.
We’re looking forward to returning to Mexico City in a week.
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