(Motorsports news) Alpine’s Pierre Gasly was enraged after the Suzuka race after being advised on the penultimate lap to slow down and allow teammate Esteban Ocon to pass for ninth place. Alpine had made the request after switching drivers to see whether Gasly could close down and chase Fernando Alonso, who was running ahead of them on the road.

Gasly was irritated by the late position transfer since he felt it was unnecessary and there had been no prior notice of it happening. Alpine’s Interim team principal Bruno Famin has performed a thorough investigation into what happened and has admitted that the pitwall might have done a better job of explaining things to Gasly.

However, he stands by the decisions taken that day because the focus is always on trying to benefit the squad as a whole. “Alpine’s priority, first and foremost, is to score as many points as possible during any given race weekend,” he stated ahead of the Qatar Grand Prix. “We saw an opportunity for Pierre to fight for eighth place with fresher tyres.” We had no choice but to try.

“Our communication with him may not have been optimal, and we will ensure that it is in the future.” Both drivers are clearly determined to succeed and maximize the team outcome, which makes me delighted.” Gasly is also more philosophical about what happened now, having sat down with the team and examined events after the race.

“Sometimes emotions do spill over and, of course, as a driver I want to push to the limit and achieve the best result possible,” he stated. “I was definitely frustrated in the aftermath, but we were able to discuss strategy and execution as a team.” The most important thing is to maximize the total team result on any given weekend.”

Alpine was left fighting for the lower points position in Japan because it was recovering from terrible grid positions, with both Gasly and Ocon eliminated in Q2. If the team is to capitalize on the great form it believes its A523 car has, it believes it needs to work more on boosting its single-lap pace.

“While we came away with a strong result, we did not maximize our single-lap pace on Saturday, which meant we exited in Q2,” Gasly added. “It’s something we must work on as we need to benefit from a better starting position to give ourselves the best chance on Sundays.”

“We recovered from both cars exiting Q2 on Saturday and converted tough starting spots into double points,” Famin continued. Esteban was caught up in a start melee, which is usual when you start in the grid’s center. “While he did a good job to climb back to the points, we must do a better job and strive to have both cars in Q3 to be better placed on the grid and avoid these types of incidents.”

Also read: In 2022, the Alpine F1 team had a profit of £26.2 million