‘What a race!’ – Gasly hails ‘amazing’ Dutch Grand Prix as he bags precious points for Alpine

Pierre Gasly was left delighted with his efforts in Zandvoort after scoring two valuable points for Alpine courtesy of his P9 finish.

The team's weekend had started off poorly, finishing 18th and 20th in first practice, with Alpine subsequently sending reserve – and future F1 driver – Jack Doohan to the simulator to gather as much data as possible.

FACTS AND STATS: Zandvoort top ten all previous race winners – for the second race in a row!

The work done overnight, leading into Saturday, undoubtedly helped Gasly, who managed to qualify in the top 10 and then stay there in the race. A great start for the Frenchman also set up his Grand Prix perfectly but it wasn’t an easy race on his way to ninth – he had to make moves stick on track and hold a charging Fernando Alonso at bay in the closing stages.

“I’m extremely happy, I must say,” Gasly admitted afterwards. “We definitely were not that optimistic yesterday.

“What a race, to be fair. Honestly, it was amazing. I had a great start, managed to go around the outside of Lance [Stroll] and Fernando [Alonso] in Turn 1, which I think was extremely important for our race. I managed to control the race from there on, managed the tyre and Fernando behind, who was putting quite a lot of pressure on all the way through.

“I had a couple of great battles with Lewis and Carlos as well, so it was fun. I’m very pleased we managed to get on top of that midfield.”

READ MORE: Hamilton rues impact of poor qualifying in Zandvoort as Russell mystified by Mercedes’ lack of pace

Alpine remain relatively far behind Haas in the fight for seventh in the constructors’ championship, but have at least put further distance between themselves and Williams behind – the Grove team failing to score in Zandvoort.

But while Gasly left feeling positive, the same couldn’t be said for his team mate. Esteban Ocon had struggled in qualifying, exiting in Q1 and bemoaning a car that he called “a disaster,” as well as feeling he was “going to crash every corner.”

Starting 15th thanks to Alex Albon’s disqualification, Ocon was unable to make much progress on a day where many were stuck in a DRS train, and wound up coming home where he started.

“It was a difficult weekend, unfortunately,” he said. “I think we did the maximum we could on our side today, but the positive on the other side is that Pierre [Gasly] and the team had good pace, which is good information for us. Well done to the team and himself for scoring some points.

READ MORE: ‘Everything is possible’ – Alpine’s Briatore and Oakes on their plans to tempt Newey and revolutionise Enstone

“It’s going to be important to understand that ahead of next weekend, see where we struggled and hopefully turn things around for Monza.

“After that race there are some more clues, more information on where we think we can be working, we can be having a look. We just need to put the fingers on things and act to fix that for the next race.”