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BWT Alpine F1 Team celebrated with four points at the Belgian Grand Prix this weekend (29th-30th July) after a couple of much less successful races. Esteban Ocon finished in eighth whilst Pierre Gasly narrowly missed out on points with an eleventh place finish.
Ocon’s points were the first for him since the Canadian Grand Prix and has moved him back into the top ten in the Drivers’ Championship just before the summer shutdown. His race ran on a two-stop Soft-Medium-Soft strategy which he paired with several excellent overtakes.
Gasly started strong with a start from P12 but was stuck with nowhere to go on the opening lap on the run up to Eau Rouge when he became stuck behind Oscar Piastri in his slow moving McLaren which allowed a number of cars to overtake him. He finished three seconds away from claiming the final point after a charging late effort.
Speaking about the race, Ocon said “It feels good to be back in the points here in Spa after a few tough weeks where we’ve finished outside the points due to circumstances out of our control. Overall, it was a good recovery drive and a well-executed race from the team today. Eighth place is a very good result after starting from fourteenth on the grid.”
Gasly added “It’s been a frustrating afternoon where we did not score points. I made a pretty good start into Turn 1 and then on the run into Turn 2, gaining a couple of positions. I was very unlucky with Oscar [Piastri] who had damage and was slow up Eau Rouge and I ended up being stuck behind him with a number of cars able to overtake. That made things difficult for us, left us playing catch-up and then we had to see if we could extend our first stint on Softs with the chance of rain. It did not rain hard enough, so we converted to a one-stop and in the end fell just short of the points. Some of the racing was fun out there but we’re still lacking some power which we need to find.”
The team now looks ahead to the summer shutdown before Formula returns in Zandvoort in August.
