Round 15 of the Formula One World Championship at Zandvoort was a wild race and, while there weren’t the overtakes of previous years on track, there was enough chaos to keep it interesting. With multiple DNFs, three safety car periods and the light spotting of rain during the race, all of the drivers would have been feeling tense throughout.
Sadly, the chaos caught out the BWT Alpine Formula One Team’s strategy with Pierre, leaving him languishing at the back of the grid after race proceedings ended. Franco had a better result, with an alternate strategy paying dividends towards the end of the race, seeing him finish in 11th.
Today in numbers:
Pierre started from P14 on New Mediums, finished P17
Pit-stop on Lap 23 for New Hards. Fastest Lap: 1min 15.248secs
Franco started from P16 on New Softs, finished P11
Pit-stop on Lap 19 for New Hards, Lap 53 for New Mediums, and Lap 65 for New Softs. Fastest Lap: 1min 13.049secs
Gasly’s strategy lost out:
Sadly, so many changes happening throughout the race had the strategy team making decisions on the fly. Gasly remained out on used Hard tyres to try and gain track position, but in the end, his tyres gave in and meant he was too easy to pass on track with the tyre deltas:
“We took a bit of a gamble at the end to keep track position on used Hard tyres and I tried to fight as hard as I could with what I had. It just did not work out even if we battled very hard.”
While Gasly still enjoyed the challenging race, he was aware of the team’s lack of pace against competitors and looked towards the next race at Monza:
“There were some good battles and it is always more enjoyable when racing is like this. Typically, we lack pace, we are still trying to improve everything we have and we go again in Monza next weekend. It is a place with special memories for me.”
Franco’s push through the field:
The team strategy played better for Franco, with the team picking the right tyres throughout the safety car periods to give Franco the opportunity to attack the cars ahead of him:
“We made a call at the end to pit for Softs during the final Safety Car to try and attack cars ahead towards the points. We were very close but just short at the end. There are many positives to take from the weekend.”
He’s looking forward to the next opportunity on track to try and keep hold of this week’s momentum:
“I feel more things on my side are coming together and I look forward to returning to Monza next weekend; the venue of my Formula 1 debut last year.”
Flavio feels it was a missed opportunity:
Much like his drivers, Flavio felt that the race offered the team a lot, but they struggled to capitalise on the opportunity. He mentioned that Franco had a much-improved race and Pierre struggled with the tools he was given:
“It is a race where, looking at the leaderboard, it feels like a missed opportunity to score points as a team for varying reasons. Starting from outside the points, we took some risks throughout to try and maximise our chances to score.”
He made sure to keep the team’s spirits high, speaking to the work each weekend:
“We will keep trying at each race to maximise our end result with the package we have.”
