Gasly still rues lost Monaco podium but “extremely excited” by Alpine potential

Pierre Gasly arrived at the Circuit de Catalunya with high hopes for Alpine’s potential having come close to finishing on the podium in Monaco.

Gasly was running third until he pitted for slick tyres shortly before rain arrived, forcing him to come in again. He said he had urged his team not to bring him in to avoid the risk of making an extra pit stop.

“I mentioned I wanted to go long,” he told media including RaceFans. “I mentioned track position. My tyres were fine.

“Obviously I’m not going to go into details, there were reasons why they made this call. But once you’re P3 in Monaco. you don’t really have pressure from anywhere to kind of trigger that… we kind of gave the podium to Mercedes at that time. We had both cars be P3, P5 and kind of allowed Mercedes to have a shot at the podium.”

The rain arrived soon after Gasly pitted. Drivers such as George Russell who hadn’t changed tyres up to that point were able to take advantage of the opportunity to make a single pit stop to their rivals’ two.

“The podium was right there, we just had to box three laps later for an inter when Esteban and the guys behind boxed,” said Gasly. “Pretty much like what Russell did. Russell at the time was running two to three seconds behind me, boxed for inters, came out third and thank God he went straight into the escape road!”

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“You can’t redo the race, it was done, Gasly added. “I think we could have made a different call, which would have put me on the on the podium. But anyway, it’s done and everything was talked about.”

Gasly finished seventh while Ocon reached the podium. He said the team has reason to be optimistic after their first rostrum finish since 2021.

“I was still very pleased for the team because I can see all the work that it’s putting in this package, whether it’s at the track, whether it’s back in Enstone and Viry and I think it’s very well deserved for all the guys to get that podium at this point in the season,” said Gasly.

“I can see the smiles that it’s bringing inside the team and the motivation and the mindset that is also different, more confident, clearly going after Mercedes and Ferrari. I hope we can repeat these strong performances on a more consistent basis from now on.”

He said he is “extremely excited to see what we can achieve” in the Spanish Grand Prix. “I think there’s a great momentum within the team.

“There was a better Miami performance. Monaco was definitely a clear big step forward and that’s the sort of performance I want to see from the team. I can see all the efforts they are putting, all the hard work that is going into this new package. So I really hope be able to put similar performance in the coming races.”

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“The performance I’ve seen in Monaco is the performance I want to repeat and is the performance that I believe is achievable in Alpine,” he added. “I was really pleased because that’s where I think we are able to perform.

“This sort of standard, obviously it means we’ve got to be robust in all areas and all departments. If we achieved that in Monaco I don’t see any reasons why we shouldn’t be able to achieve it in other race tracks. But first of all, we need to get that consistency. I don’t want to make big conclusions or assume anything after only one race. It’s important to kind of repeat this weekend and in the coming races.”

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