‘We are not quick or competitive’ – Gasly offers grim assessment as Alpine fail to score for third straight race

Alpine might have had a more straightforward race in Singapore than the one they managed in Azerbaijan, but both drivers come home outside the points for the third straight race weekend.
Their only score since the summer break remains Pierre Gasly’s P9 finish in Zandvoort, and since then the team have slid backwards in the highly congested midfield. The Frenchman finished 17th in Singapore after trying an alternative strategy, which didn’t help his cause.
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He started on the mediums like most of the field, but ran an exceptionally long first stint before bolting on the softs late on – too late to make much of an impression and climb back through the order.
“A very difficult and frustrating race for us in the end,” Gasly said afterwards. “We are just not quick or competitive enough at the moment.
“The lack of pace forced us to try some different strategies in the hope of improving our end result. We stayed out long on the Mediums on the first stint and lost a lot of time to cars we were racing at the start.
“The plan then was to disrupt some cars behind in the hope to benefit Esteban to get something from the race.”
That plan didn’t work out, although Esteban Ocon managed to finish two places higher than he started, coming home in 13th. That was mostly courtesy of a good getaway, rather than outright pace during the race itself.
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“The reality is three races ago [in Zandvoort] we were ninth place and at the last three races we have been far away from the top 10,” Gasly concluded. “We have to find some performance and there is a lot of work ahead of us to improve our current level.”
Alpine were leapfrogged by Williams in the constructors’ championship and now languish down in ninth place, ahead only of the Kick Sauber team, who are yet to score. And unless they recover some form, they look unlikely to catch the buoyant Williams, who have genuine top 10 pace at the moment and came close to scoring at Marina Bay.
“We had a good start in today’s race, gaining a few positions off the line, but we did not have the pace to be a points contender, and we were unable to keep up with the train of cars ahead,” Ocon said of his Singapore Grand Prix.
“We maximised what we had, but without any big opportunities for us to capitalise on we weren’t able to move further ahead.”
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