Pierre Gasly was made to lament the Italian Grand Prix being a “super painful” weekend for Alpine.
Alpine arrived at the low-downforce Monza circuit already expecting to struggle at a venue that rewards good top-end speed down the multitude of straights.
After Gasly admitted Alpine were “struggling more than expected” during Friday practice, the Enstone side’s worst fears were realised in qualifying as both Gasly and team-mate Esteban Ocon failed to advance beyond Q1.
Alpine’s fortunes wouldn’t improve dramatically in the race, with Gasly trailing home 15th in the sole remaining A523.
“It’s been super-painful. I don’t think we have ever had such a lack of competitiveness compared to our rivals,” Gasly rued on Sunday.
“We knew straight away from the start of the season that [Monza] will be a painful one, but it was clearly very difficult out there. We saw it yesterday, we knew there will not be any magic overnight, but it’s just pretty painful from inside the cockpit.”
Whilst the entirety of the top-10 finishers executed a one-stop strategy, Alpine opted to run split strategies on Sunday in a bid to prop at least one of its cars up the order.
Ocon was angling to complete the distance on a solitary change for tyres before his retirement. Meanwhile, Gasly was the earliest driver in the pit lane on Lap 10, stopping for a second time on Lap 31.
The Frenchman asserts that Alpine had to “gamble” on strategy in order to counter its lacklustre performance.
“We thought we’d try something different on both cars and if a Safety Car comes in at any moment then me and Esteban will benefit from it, or I would benefit from one at a later point, but when you’re lacking so much performance like that, you’ve just got to gamble,” he explained.
“Unfortunately, it’s no secret when you’re competitive it ends up really well, when you’re not competitive it’s much harder.”
Gasly was only saved the blushes of being lapped as race winner Max Verstappen encountered an issue in the closing stages that forced him to reduce his pace.
Nevertheless, Gasly’s nightmare race marked a complete contrast to the weekend before when he collected his maiden podium finish with Alpine at Zandvoort.
The ex-Red Bull affiliate declares the Anglo-French outfit must understand its drop in performance, adding that the deficit can’t entirely be attributed to the power unit.
“We always knew it was going to be difficult, but I think the most important really is to understand and quantify where that drop of performance is coming from and come back next year with a stronger package,” he added.
“I’m going past Carlos [Sainz, Ferrari] last week on track, same tyres on pure pace and this week he’s standing on the podium and I’m almost a lap down.
“We knew it’s a very power-sensitive track, but it’s the whole package which has got to be better for this track.”
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