27-year-old F1 driver admits he sacrificed qualifying in Brazil for Sunday’s race

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Alpine driver Pierre Gasly has admitted that he sacrificed a good performance in qualifying in Brazil to improve his race pace.

Gasly was speaking to Formula 1’s official website after a fascinating race at Interlagos.

As has been the case for much of the season, the two Alpine drivers haven’t made an awful lot of headlines.

They’ve been steady all year, picking up minor points in most races as they’ve generally been the sixth-quickest team on the grid.

The highlights have been Esteban Ocon’s fantastic podium in Monaco and Pierre Gasly finishing third in the Sprint Race at Spa and then matching that result in the Netherlands.

The French pair are separated by 16 points with two races remaining and Ocon is going to need to pull his finger out to overtake his new teammate in the driver’s standings.

Gasly is still only one point behind Lance Stroll and admitted he was happy to run slowly in qualifying in Brazil to get the best out of his car in the race.

He only ended Friday’s session five thousandths behind his teammate but managed to finish three places above Ocon during Sunday’s race.

The 27-year-old even got the better of Lewis Hamilton on a day when the Mercedes looked much more like a backmarker than the Alpine.

Gasly hails qualifying set-up for Brazil success

Speaking about his display in Sao Paulo, Gasly said: “It was an incredible race, I’m very happy with the work as a team we have done this weekend.

“We purposely decided to compromise the car set-up a bit for qualifying to improve our chances to race and have a bit more straight-line speed.

“And from P15, made up eight positions, managed to you know get in that group with Carlos, with the Mercedes, with Aston for quite a while, yeah, one of our best races of the season.

“Good tyre management, good pit stops, good strategy. Strong team race overall with Esteban in P10 and me P7 so very positive.”

Gasly will hope that Alpine can produce a car next year that doesn’t require him to sacrifice qualifying pace like he did in Brazil to compete during races.

The team are the definition of mid-table right now and will hope they can replicate McLaren’s resurgence this season to fight at the front of the grid.

They’ve got to make sure the team go in that direction and don’t get caught up in the fight between the bottom four teams instead.