Marcin Budkowski was disappointed to see his Alpine F1 Team score only a single point during Sunday’s Turkish Grand Prix, but he was full of praise for the way Esteban Ocon managed his tyres throughout the race at Intercity Istanbul Park.
Fernando Alonso had started fifth after a superb Qualifying performance on Saturday, but the Spaniards race was compromised early after contact with Pierre Gasly at turn one on the opening lap spun him around.
As he was attempting to regain ground, he made more contact, this time with Mick Schumacher, which earned him a five-second time penalty and some potential damage to his A521, and this left him sixteenth at the chequered flag.
Ocon on the other hand drove superbly after taking the gamble not to switch tyres during the race. After starting twelfth, he ultimately finished tenth to secure a valuable point for the team and extend the outfits points scoring run to fifteen races.
However, with Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda scoring a sixth-place finish thanks to Gasly, Alpine saw their advantage over their rivals reduce to twelve points with just six races remaining, much to the disappointment of Executive Director Budkowski.
“Today was a very meagre outcome for the team,” said Budkowski. “Fernando was pushed out by Gasly at Turn 1 and then had another incident with Schumacher.
“From there his race was heavily compromised. He couldn’t find the pace even after the graining phase of the tyres and we have to check if there was any damage to the car from the two earlier contacts. It’s a frustrating outcome for him after starting from fifth, especially seeing where Gasly finished the race.
“On Esteban’s side, it was a masterclass in tyre management. He covered the whole race distance on one set of Intermediates to salvage a point, which, starting from twelfth in a race with no attrition, is a pretty decent outcome.
“Even if we extend our points scoring streak to fifteen races in a row, we lost points in our fight for fifth in the championship. We’re now turning our focus on the next race in Austin where we aim to bounce back.”
