(Motorsports news) When Pierre Gasly joined the Enstone-based team at the beginning of this year, he had high expectations for it to surpass its fourth-place showing in the 2022 constructors championship standings. But Alpine had to go through a tumultuous campaign marred by mishaps and internal strife. 

Due to two unintentional collisions between Gasly and teammate Esteban Ocon and the A523 drifting back into the middle of the field, the team is now sixth in the standings. There has been unrest behind the scenes as well, as the team came under harsh criticism from former CEO Laurent Rossi at the Miami Grand Prix. 

Before the squad also parted ways with team principal Otmar Szafnauer and sporting director Alan Permane over disagreements about its recovery potential, he was then subsequently demoted. Gasly acknowledges that the season has not been easy, but he also believes that bad luck has contributed to the campaign, particularly in Melbourne when a second-corner crash during one of the red-flag restarts cost Alpine a number of points. 

Pierre Gasly reflected on the first half of the year, “I think it’s been quite tricky for many different reasons,” Gasly stated. “Overall, I believe that this season has been the most unlucky I’ve experienced in Formula 1 compared to all past seasons. The results were significantly impacted by a few lost opportunities that had a snowball effect, to use a technical term. Therefore, it is clear that it does not accurately reflect the package’s potential.  

On the other hand, we haven’t been as competitive as we had hoped to be when the year began. “Alpine started this year behind Aston Martin, therefore we are the fifth best team. Alpine finished fairly strongly in fourth place [in 2022]. When McLaren’s development was superior to ours at that point, we slid to sixth place. And it’s clear that it’s not the season’s goal.  

“To say that we met expectations would be a lie. However, we still have a half year before then, and there are still a lot of advancements in the works. “It won’t change the course of the entire season, but I’m confident that we can put together a stronger performance in the second half of the year.” According to Gasly, the team has struggled to provide the findings for a number of reasons, as the A523 has a number of problems that needed to be fixed. 

There are undoubtedly many areas that need work, he added. There is general downforce, which will increase your load and speed. To be fair, we are now pursuing all of that. Therefore, it cannot be said that one sector is weaker than the others. Simply said, we’re working to strengthen the package. Furthermore, we haven’t really taken the move we had hoped for.

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