Esteban Ocon said Alpine expected to be more competitive this weekend following their poor start to the season a week ago.
He and team mate Pierre Gasly failed to progress beyond the first round of qualifying for the second time in as many races. Alpine is the only team in the race which have not lapped the Jeddah Corniche Circuit faster than they managed last year.
Despite that, Ocon said they are in slightly better shape than they were in Bahrain.
“It’s been a difficult session,” he told the official F1 channel after qualifying. “Obviously I’m frustrated to [drop out in Q1] once again.
“We were expecting a little bit better. I think it was a little bit better than Bahrain in general, but we still lacked some pace ultimately and that’s why we are here today.”
Ocon will start today’s race 17th, one place ahead of Gasly. Of the two drivers they out-qualified, one of them, Zhou Guanyu, failed to set a time.
With points unlikely for the team in the race, Ocon said they may have to treat it like a test session.
“We’re going to go to the race fighting like no tomorrow, like always, see what we get out of that race. If it’s just some data that we gather then we will gather it well and keep the work going.”
Gasly said he didn’t expect a better round for the team, which is one of three in the field not to have brought any upgrades this weekend.
“We obviously knew there would not be any big change for the weekend, the car is the same,” he said.
“I think on our side, we did a strong first run. It was a pretty strong lap. On the second lap, unfortunately, I had a massive snap and just no rear grip from the start of the lap. So we’ll have to analyse for next weekend.”
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2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix
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