Gasly admits Alpine are 'just too slow' as team endure tough Hungarian Grand Prix

Pierre Gasly has conceded Alpine are "just too slow" after he and team mate Franco Colapinto endured a tough Hungarian Grand Prix, with the pair coming home last of the 19 cars to finish.

With Colapinto starting 14th and Gasly 17th at a track where overtaking can be tricky, it was always going to be tough for the French outfit at the Hungaroring, with their best hope being a spot of weather hitting the circuit.

However, the rain did not materialise, and even splitting the strategies – with Gasly one-stopping and Colapinto stopping twice – did not help.

Gasly’s race was further hampered by a 10-second time penalty picked up late on, after a collision with Carlos Sainz when fighting for P15. with the stewards deeming him at fault. Although he crossed the line 17th, that penalty demoted the Frenchman to P19 and last, with Colapinto in 18th.

“We cannot be pleased with the end result today, even if it felt like our execution was quite good,” explained Gasly. "Ultimately, we are just too slow.

“The last two weekends we have been able to maximise the conditions and come away with two good results. Today was more conventional and it really highlighted our weak spots.

"Still, there were a lot of fun battles out there and I felt like the racing was generally very good. I am here to race, not to give up, and I just gave it my best in all the wheel-to-wheel fights.”

Gasly’s sixth-place result at Silverstone and P10 at Spa have kept Alpine’s points haul ticking over, but they are now 15 points behind Haas in the battle for ninth in the Teams’ Championship.

As for Colapinto, his hunt for a first points finish of the year continues – but the Argentine racer can take heart from making Q2 in Hungary and out-qualifying his team mate for the first time since Canada.

However, his race was undone by a couple of slow pit stops, and he found himself stuck in a DRS train for most of the afternoon.

“It was not the best of days today and a difficult race for us as a team,” Colapinto said after the race. "The pace was good at times in clean air and I had the same feeling as yesterday, I think we have taken a good step forward with the car, which has given me confidence.

“But with the blue flags and losing time in the pitlane, it really limited what we could achieve today. The initial start and getaway was good, but from there we fell back on the first lap and lost places. I was struggling with rear grip and sliding, which came back to us later in the race.

“We opted for a two-stop and unfortunately, we encountered issues on both which meant we were held longer than we expected. As a team, we've been very good recently with pitstops, but these things happen in racing.”