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Alpine F1 Team Principal Otmar Szafnauer has said that he's unable to pinpoint the reason behind the team's lack of pace during the race at the Jeddah International Circuit on Sunday (March 19).
The French team only finished P8 and P9 with Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly respectively. Alpine did look at the same level as Aston Martin, Ferrari and Mercedes on Friday in terms of race pace.
While analysing the race, speaking to Sky Sports, Szafnauer said:
"Yeah, we were a bit in a no man's land for a while, and then we turned the car down and were conservative on the tyres just to make sure they lasted till the end. I was hoping that we could push up to the Ferrari a bit more but was overruled by the engineers.
"We've got to look at it. We don't run light on Friday, so it's not the amount of fuel we have in; we just have to analyse and see where we could do a bit better on Sunday versus Friday."
"I don’t think the gap is that big" - Alpine driver Pierre Gasly
Ahead of the Saudi Arabian GP weekend, Alpine driver Pierre Gasly was confident that they could target the likes of Aston Martin and Mercedes in the race after his P9 finish in the season opener in Bahrain.
Speaking to the media, including Sportskeeda, he said:
“I was looking ahead, always looking ahead. As I said form Sunday, there was definitely some very good positive data that came out do it and good signs of performance."
He continued:
"I don’t think the gap is that big; we finished like 15 or 17 seconds behind George, doing three quarters of the race in traffic and starting from the back, but it is definitely something that is our target, and that’s where we want to be fighting. For example, Jeddah is a different track, and Melbourne is going to be a very different track. So it’s going to be quite interesting over the next few weekends where everybody stands because I don’t think it is very clear where we exactly are.”
It was quite surprising to see Alpine so far behind Ferrari in the race as they had better race pace than the Italian team on Friday. They will hope to rectify the issues before the next race in Melbourne.
