Why Gasly ‘is not going to be disappointed’ with P7 as Colapinto fights back to points

Usually a Formula 1 driver who starts from pole position and tumbles down to seventh won’t be too happy with such an outcome, but that wasn’t the case for Pierre Gasly in Monza.

As much as Gasly dared to dream that circumstances might allow him at least make it to the podium, the Frenchman and his Alpine team knew that the numbers didn’t add up.

The A526 was superb over one lap on Saturday. However, it was always going to struggle to hold its own against Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari over a race distance.

The retirement of Charles Leclerc and a difficult race for Liam Lawson opened up a couple of spots among the top eight places, and that allowed the Frenchman to take a respectable P7, well clear of the rest of the usual midfield contenders.

The 2020 Italian Grand Prix winner also crossed the line on the tail of a Ferrari and only 27.3 seconds behind winner Kimi Antonelli.

“I mean, the part of me that is realistic is very satisfied,” said Gasly. “Basically, starting on pole, you must have a side of you which thinks, ‘Okay, what can happen over 53 laps, this and that?’ But I've got to be honest, before the race, we knew that with the pace in the race it would be extremely difficult to stay up there and fight with the top guys.

“I'm very happy with the two starts – we took two great starts, managed to keep the lead on the first one, great on the second, battled slightly, stayed in the right train for the first 10 laps, which was really good. And we battled with Lando Norris, who won the last two races.

“So from where we come from, it's very positive and finished three seconds behind Lewis, who has been fighting for podium this year, so I'm not going to be disappointed with that.

“Obviously, the end result is P7, and you'll wish you can get slightly more out of it. But I think overall we've just got to try to take all the positives from the weekend, because there were many and try to build from that.”

“It's been a lot going on, for sure,” he said. “The last 24 hours has been extremely fun and extremely enjoyable with all the energy, the motivation in the garage, the reaction of the whole team. I'm sure it's going to bring a huge boost to all of us.

“And as I say, from where we came last year to today, I was looking at the cars ahead, they were a couple seconds in front of us. We finished 18 seconds ahead of Arvid, so the gap with the cars in front was smaller than the gap with the car behind. So that's what we've got to build on, and hopefully we can repeat this type of performance more often.”

The good news is that Gasly can see Alpine making progress in all areas.

“I’m very happy with the steps I'm seeing everywhere, in terms of car performance, in terms of executions, in terms of how we approach the weekend,” he said. “We're raising the bar all the time. And again, a few things we know on race day which we're missing with the car, like help with the tyres, et cetera. So we still have stuff to learn and do better. But overall, I think we're very well aware, and we are heading in the right direction.

“For the team, I think the last pole was in 2009. Imagine some guys that have been working there for years and never experienced it! And I'm sure going back to Enstone is going to be quite special. And again, that should be the target, try to repeat it and get a bit better on Sunday, and try to be in that mix in front of us.”

Meanwhile it was a race of frustration for Gasly’s team mate Franco Colapinto. On the one hand he had a great initial start, getting up to fourth prior to the red flag. He then gained another spot by passing Max Verstappen at the restart to briefly take third.

However, he then made a mistake and ran through the gravel, which dropped him to P15. After that it was a hard slog back to P9 and a couple of precious points.

"I just lost the car completely in Turn 5, [Turn] 6, a bit out of nowhere,” the Argentinian said. “You feel so strong, and suddenly fighting with the top teams, you get very motivated very quickly, and a mistake like that throws it all away. Just frustrated. I don't really understand yet what happened. I lost the car very aggressively, I went very fast through the gravel. I had a lot of damage.”

This was the first time that Colapinto had a chance to go wheel-to-wheel with the biggest names in the sport: “That's why I think it's so frustrating. P7 to P3, it's very good. I got four of the top teams' cars, and that's why it hurts so much to throw it away. Being up there with them, you don't realise that it's not really your fight.

“You want to keep going and taking risks, and maybe it didn't make sense. I have just to learn from it and try to improve for the next time I get a chance for this.”