Pierre Gasly hails ‘surprise’ qualifying session as Alpine enjoys a strong Saturday in Bahrain

If a Formula 1 team needed a good result from Saturday’s qualifying session, it was Alpine. Entering the Bahrain Grand Prix as the only team yet to score this season, a strong result from Pierre Gasly or Jack Doohan would give them a much-needed confidence boost heading into the race on Sunday.

Alpine got exactly what they were hoping for.

Pierre Gasly stormed into Q3 and threatened for the top three, ultimately qualifying fifth for the Bahrain Grand Prix. He was then promoted to fourth following a one-place grid penalty handed down to Kimi Antonelli. As for the rookie Doohan, he put in his best qualifying performance of the season, threatening for Q3 before missing out by just 0.017 seconds.

Still, with Gasly starting fourth and Doohan 11th, both drivers are in a position to bring points home tomorrow.

“That was a very good Qualifying and we definitely needed that,” said Gasly in the team’s post-qualifying report. “I’m very happy for the entire team with that result and performance. I must say, I was struggling a little bit at the start of the session. I was not feeling that comfortable in Q1 with low grip and a lot of sliding. We managed to unlock the potential from the tires from Q2 onwards and really extracted more and more from them as the session went on. In the end, Q3, and that last lap, when I crossed the line, I knew it was a special one.

“Even so, to be fifth and so close to the top three and even pole position is a nice surprise. Great work all round by the whole team and now we must focus on tomorrow. We have some fast cars behind us, we will try to fight them, but we know our goal is to cross the line inside the points.”

On the other side of the garage, Doohan admitted to having “mixed emotions” after a strong performance that still saw him on the outside of Q3.

“I have mixed emotions after that session even if the majority of the evening was largely very positive. We will start tomorrow’s race in our best starting position of the year on my side,” said Doohan. “It was all coming together nicely throughout Q1 and most of Q2. I think I missed the window on tire optimization on the last run – a little too fast on my warm-up – over-preparing them and we probably did not maximize the full potential on that last push lap.

“Still, plenty of positives there and things to understand for future. Tomorrow will be a long race, with high tire degradation quite likely,” continued Doohan. “Starting in eleventh means we are knocking on the door of the points so we will see what we can do on strategy and aim to convert today into a top ten finish in the race.”