Alpine admits Racing Bulls "outdeveloped" them
Alpine left the Belgian Grand Prix with a single championship point after Franco Colapinto finished 10th at Spa-Francorchamps, while Pierre Gasly narrowly missed out in 11th following a frustrating afternoon.
Both Alpine drivers spent spells inside the top 10 during the 44-lap race, but their chances were compromised when they pitted shortly before a Virtual Safety Car, allowing several rivals to make cheaper stops.
Colapinto fought back impressively with a pair of overtakes to reclaim a points-paying position, while Gasly remained close behind to help secure the result for the Enstone-based team.
Gasly admitted the race never came together after a difficult opening lap. The Frenchman explained that a poor getaway immediately put him on the back foot.
"It was a frustrating race for me, where we finished just outside the points. I had a tough start, not fast enough in the opening phase for some reason and lost some positions on the opening lap."
From there, Alpine attempted to recover using strategy: "After that, we had to try and recover some positions with the fight for the points amongst a number of teams and cars."
Gasly revealed the team attempted an undercut on the Racing Bulls cars, but a slow pit stop ultimately prevented it from working.
> "We tried the undercut to get ahead of Racing Bulls but we had a relatively slow stop, which meant our out lap was in traffic and that impacted our chances of making it work."
He believes the race could have unfolded very differently had Alpine secured the necessary track position.
> "From my view, it felt like that might have changed our race had we had track position and been ahead of the Racing Bulls in that moment, so there are a few things for us to review and for me to understand."
Gasly also described the constant battles caused by differing energy deployment strategies throughout the field. Unfortunately for the Frenchman, he felt Alpine simply lacked the pace to fight the teams ahead.
"After that, lap after lap, there were so many energy deployment tactics and overtakes down the Kemmel Straight. Today, it did not go my way, but the bigger picture is the fact we are not quick enough."
He singled out Audi and Racing Bulls as the current benchmark in the midfield.
"Gabriel [Bortoleto] and Arvid [Lindblad] were too far ahead and that has been a bit of a trend in recent weeks which we need to reverse soon."
Gasly is now turning his attention to the Hungarian Grand Prix: "I'll have a few days to recover before full focus goes onto Budapest, the final race before the summer break."
On the other side of the garage, Colapinto was pleased to convert a strong drive into another valuable championship point. The Argentine enjoyed the nature of the race despite its challenges.
"I'm happy to score a point this afternoon in Belgium after finishing in P10. It was a long and eventful race, but also quite fun at the wheel with a lot of action happening."
He credited a strong opening lap for putting Alpine into contention: "It was a good race for us, a good start to gain some places, which put ourselves up there and in reach of scoring points."
One of the highlights of Colapinto's afternoon was a decisive double overtake that secured 10th place.
"I quite enjoyed the double overtake, which secured P10! That was down to a good run and slipstream and then I just had to try and go on the inside of Liam [Lawson] and then just ahead of Pierre to make the move."
Colapinto believes the team understands where improvements are needed. Although Alpine showed better form at Spa than in recent races, he feels there is still work to do.
"In general, we know where our fight is and we know where we are lacking pace. We were definitely a bit stronger here compared to some recent tracks."
The rookie remains optimistic that more performance is on the way. Looking ahead, Colapinto expects a very different challenge in Budapest.
"More progress will be made soon on our side but I am just glad, for now, we maximised what we could today. Next is Budapest, which is a very different kind of circuit compared to here."
Executive Advisor Flavio Briatore admitted Alpine has ground to make up despite remaining fifth in the Constructors' Championship. However, the Italian acknowledged that Racing Bulls has recently out-developed Alpine.
"We leave Belgium with one point after Franco's P10 finish meaning we remain in P5 in the Championship but level on points with Racing Bulls."
"They have done a much better job than us in recent weeks to add performance to their car and that trend has continued, and probably extended, here in Spa."
Briatore nevertheless praised both drivers for their racing: "We saw some good, fair, wheel to wheel racing throughout, especially from Pierre and Franco who also kept it clean and entertaining between themselves; this time the result fell Franco's way so well done to him."
While he does not expect an immediate turnaround in Hungary, Briatore stressed that Alpine's focus remains on bringing more performance after the summer break.
"We know Hungary won't see a complete turnaround in results or competitive order but we must continue our efforts off-track to find more performance post-summer break and give both drivers more tools to fight much higher up the grid than what we are currently."
