Gasly in contention in China: "extremely satisfied" after his Sprint Qualifying

Pierre Gasly delivered a solid Sprint qualifying performance on Friday in Shanghai. Starting seventh on the grid for Saturday's short race, the Alpine driver believes the team has made significant progress since Melbourne and is approaching the rest of the weekend with confidence, despite the tires already proving tricky on the Chinese circuit.

After a rather uneventful Australian Grand Prix—despite scoring a point with a 10th-place finish—Gasly seems to have regained a bit more confidence behind the wheel of his Alpine on the Chinese track.

The Frenchman did not hide his satisfaction after the Sprint qualifying session, from which he emerged in 7th place. “I have to say that I'm extremely happy with that, especially after last week.”

According to him, the team learned valuable lessons from the Melbourne weekend, which seems to have helped unlock some performance. “I think we've found a lot more performance, thanks to the lessons learned in Melbourne. I tried to put it all together today and I felt much better in the car from the very first lap. I think it's good to feel in the mix and to be back in the top 10.”

Proof that the session went smoothly: Gasly even managed to qualify ahead of Max Verstappen, before being cleared after the session of an investigation for potentially hindering the Red Bull driver.

A fairly well-managed Friday, then.

Points in his sights

With an Alpine that's clearly more comfortable than it was in Australia, Gasly naturally approaches the Sprint with a certain optimism. “I feel good in the car; there's clearly more potential than what we showed in Melbourne, so I'm confident [about scoring points]. ”

But tire management could spice things up. “Let's see what we can do. Obviously, graining was pretty significant for everyone [in free practice] this morning, so that's going to be quite a challenge. I can't wait to get there.”

In Shanghai, where the long corners quickly put the tires to the test, the Sprint could quickly turn into a balancing act.

Colapinto still learning the ropes

In the other Alpine, Franco Colapinto had a slightly more difficult day. The Argentine managed to reach SQ2, but will ultimately start 16th on the grid for the Sprint.

The rookie himself acknowledged that he had to deal with an additional factor: getting to know the circuit. “It was tough today. I didn't know the track, and that made things a little more difficult.”

While the car didn't seem particularly slow, the pace simply wasn't enough to achieve more. “I think the car wasn't in a bad window in FP1, but it just didn't make the leap I wanted in Sprint qualifying. We were lacking a bit of pace.”

Colapinto nevertheless prefers to focus on the positives for the team. “The car was fast—Pierre proved that by reaching SQ3—and that's positive for the team, but for my part, I still need to figure some things out.”

In short: Alpine showed encouraging signs in Shanghai.

In short: Alpine showed encouraging signs in Shanghai, but not everyone is at the same stage of understanding the car yet. And in a Sprint weekend, the time to make progress remains… very limited.