A terrible strategy error by the Alpine team will see Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly line up at the back of the grid for tomorrow’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
The team was forced out of the competition midway through the first qualifying round at the Hungaroring today due to rain and fog.
They thought that conditions were too wet at this point for anyone to be able to improve on their previous lap times, and that there wasn’t enough time for the track to dry out. But they were proven miserably wrong.
As Ocon and Gasly watched in horror from their garage, the Alpine team lingered at the bottom of the timing screen as their rivals put in one fast lap after another, missing out on qualifying for Round 2 by just tenths of a second.
“We were 10th when we got on track,” Ocon said, which was much better than he had expected going into the session. “We thought we’d be 17th, 18th, 16th at best. So of course we went all-in for Q1.
“We were 10th and 12th, so it was better than expected. We did the right things up until then,” he added confidently. “We can make it to Q2.
“But we weren’t there when the conditions were best,” he continued. “I don’t know what we did wrong, but it was definitely not good enough, especially considering the level of performance we had with the car.
“The team decided to save the last set without either car going out. [of soft tyres] “What we had in Q2,” he explained, “was that one factor that kept the team from going out and thinking about improving because the DRS was disabled.
“The call was tight and we trusted the team because we didn’t go out,” he said. “The strategy we had was that when the track improved, it was always a team call, and when the track got worse, it was always a driver call.
“We had a decent pace in mixed conditions, but we misread the evolution of the track. [the red flag,” he said. “Obviously we have the crossover lap time so it’s quite clear what tyres are best, what conditions the track is running in.
“[That way of making decisions] It’s been working since 2020 but not today. It might have worked on the 12th or 13th.
“Maybe things will be different in the future,” he added. “We made this strategic mistake this weekend. We made the right mistake three years ago.
“Looking back, it’s easy,” he admitted. “But as a team, we’ve won and lost, and today we didn’t do well. The most important thing is to learn and make better decisions in the future.”
“We didn’t do it right today,” his teammate agreed. In mixed conditions, Q1 was more about getting on the track at the right time than car performance.
“We were completely wrong today. It was a mistake and we missed it as a result,” Gasly said. “When you have those conditions – going from wet to dry – there’s usually an opportunity and that’s what we have to take. In short, we have to do better.”
Alpine team principal Bruno Farmin admitted today that they had called it wrong. “What happened was that we had an interesting opportunity and we made a big mistake,” he said.
“We apologize for not giving drivers a chance to participate in the session, and we will brief them together and take steps to ensure this does not happen again.
“We misjudged the situation. We thought the wet track wouldn’t dry out enough to improve our lap times. We didn’t do too badly and we’re ready for Q2.
“We wanted to preserve the new set of tyres and we were so focused on that that we forgot about the big picture. The big picture was to get to Q2, so yes, we made a mistake.
“We had a minute to react between the first sector improvement and the possibility of going out, but we didn’t take advantage of it,” he said with a sigh. “We understood what was going to happen at the last minute.
“You realize you made a mistake, but there’s nothing you can do about it,” he added. “We have to learn from it and change our processes. [and] “Please make sure this big mistake never happens again.”
Despite starting behind, Pamin vowed to fight for points tomorrow. “Let’s fight, let’s fight tomorrow. I know it won’t be easy, but I think we have to respond as a team, be strong, learn and do our best.
“We are quite out of position at the back of the grid and things really need to go our way to get a good result. That said, we are a team of fighters and we will never give up.”
Ocon and Gasly could take some comfort tomorrow if Serio Perez and Yuki Tsunoda’s damaged cars are given grid penalties or require repairs that require them to start from the pit lane after incidents that triggered a caution flag during qualifying.
