02/07/2023
NEWS STORY
BWT Alpine F1 Team finished the Austrian Grand Prix with Pierre Gasly in ninth place and Esteban Ocon in twelfth place at Spielberg's Red Bull Ring.
Pierre's two points - a return to the top ten after missing out in Canada last time out - means the team leave Austria with four points from the Austrian Sprint weekend after Esteban's seventh place finish in Saturday's Sprint race.
Both drivers were on the receiving end of five-second penalties during the 71-lap race; Esteban's for an unsafe release during his first pit-stop and Pierre's for a track limits violation.
The team looks ahead to Silverstone next weekend for the British Grand Prix, the home race of the Enstone team.
Esteban Ocon: "It's not been an easy race for us today. Of course, it's always disappointing to miss out on scoring points. We'll need to sit down and carefully review the race to see where we can improve and ensure we can be more competitive on Sunday next week in Silverstone. We had contact with Yuki [Tsunoda] on the first lap and sustained some damage and then we had the penalty for an unsafe release later on, so it was certainly not our day! We leave Austria knowing we had a decent Saturday with points in the bag but with more work to do to improve on Sundays. Bring on Silverstone next week."
Pierre Gasly: "I think we pretty much extracted the most we could today. While it's satisfying to be back in the points, it's not where we want to be as we aim to be much higher than ninth place. We're lacking some pace compared to our nearest rivals and that showed today. I was pushing a lot and, in the end, we received a five-second penalty for track limits, like other cars again today. It probably doesn't change the result, and only that we fought with Lance [Stroll] at the end rather than George [Russell] ahead. I'm definitely looking forward to Silverstone and I think we can have a much stronger weekend overall there for the team's home race."
Otmar Szafnauer, Team Principal: "We are not satisfied to leave Austria with four points across the weekend. This end result highlights where we are lacking especially in terms of being able to fight with our close rivals on race day who, right now, are a couple of tenths of a second ahead of us. Next week is Silverstone where we will have an upgrade on the car and we look forward to adding more performance in the coming races. This weekend was sadly marred by the tragic death of Dilano van ‘t Hoff in the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine in Spa-Francorchamps. Dilano will always be in our thoughts and it serves as a reminder of the dangers we face in the sport we love. There are many discussions to be had in our collective goal to further enhance safety in racing. Right now, though, our thoughts are firmly with the family and friends of Dilano as well as the MP Motorsport team."
Check out our Sunday gallery from the Red Bull Ring here.