F1 News: Pierre Gasly Celebrates Belgian GP Sprint Race As Alpine Turns It Around
Pierre Gasly celebrated a third-place finish during the Belgian Grand Prix Sprint Race this afternoon after a couple of disastrous race weekends for the Alpine team.
Alpine has suffered from back-to-back double DNF weekends in both the British and Hungarian Grands Prix. On top of this, there have been a huge amount of personnel changes, the biggest of which was confirmed yesterday that team principal Otmar Szafnauer will be leaving the team after the Belgian Grand Prix.
During his post-race interview with Sky Sports presenter Naomi Schiff, the French driver explained:
"I must say it feels it feels amazing, I'm extremely happy to finish in the top three especially here in Spa which feels like some kind of home race for us without the French Grand Prix.
"It was very very difficult conditions but I'm extremely happy. We pitted at the right time and managed to hold off Lewis until the end so, it does feel very special to do it here as in Spa, obviously I've fought for Anthoine [Hubert] and I'm just extremely pleased for the whole team because it hasn't been the smoothest start to the year. And I managed to put things together here today.
When asked how it was holding off Lewis Hamilton in the latter stages of the sprint race, Gasly responded:
"I must say I gave it everything. I was trying to just focus on my driving, making clean laps one after the other and it wasn't easy. The tyres were degrading and I just gave it all and it paid off. So I'm just super happy for all the guys and I know we'll go for it again tomorrow."
Gasly collected six points during the sprint race today and will start the Grand Prix from twelfth position tomorrow.