BWT Alpine Formula One team Azerbaijan Weekend Wrap-up

Azerbaijan has presented the BWT Alpine Formula One Team with another difficult weekend, with the team struggling to break out of the bottom five with the current car package. After a tough qualifying session that saw Gasly in P18 and Colapinto hitting the wall after a P16 finish, the race was always going to be an uphill battle.

Today in numbers:
Pierre started from P18 on New Hards, finished P18
Pit stop on Lap 35 for New Mediums. Fastest Lap: 1min 45.492secs

Franco started from P16 on New Mediums, finished P19
Pit stop on Lap 16 for New Hards. Fastest Lap: 1min 46.055secs

After an unexpected first-lap Safety Car, courtesy of Oscar Piastri hitting the wall, Colapinto was able to make gains, climbing to a race-best position of P13 after some solid overtakes. A well-timed pit stop on Lap 16 saw him take new tyres, but Albon unfortunately tagged him, spinning him into the barriers.

“I tried my best and made a good start. After the first stop I was fighting with Alex [Albon] and I got spun around which cost me a lot of time. The car felt different afterwards, maybe picking up a bit of damage, which we carried for the rest of the race.”

Luckily, Colapinto and the car were able to continue, and Albon was eventually handed a 10-second penalty for causing the incident. This was little consolation to Colapinto and the team, though, as they ended up coming home in P19 at the back of the grid. He was thankful to the team after his qualifying incident and felt disappointed not to reward them with a stronger result.

“Thank you to the entire team who worked hard to have the car prepared and ready to start from the grid today. It was a big effort by everyone and shows the togetherness of the team even in difficult moments. It was a pity we could not reward them with a good result.”

Gasly’s day mirrored Franco's, with the car struggling to move up the grid or make any real impact on the overall result.

“That was a very difficult day and not a good one for us as a team. We just lacked pace here all weekend. This track has proved difficult for us, more so than at recent races, and we have to take the lessons where we can as, even with the car we have, we really should not be finishing so far off.”

Gasly admitted he was not feeling connected with the car and would likely need to address this with the team to see if anything can be salvaged in the final stages of the championship:

“I am not feeling great in the car right now like I did earlier in the season so that is something we need to turnaround. This is the package we have and I know we will sit down together, work hard and aim to come back stronger from the next race.”

No matter how the race weekend goes, Trak Racer will always strive to support the BWT Alpine Formula One Team in any way we can, pushing both our own and the team’s boundaries to achieve greatness.

Learn more about our TRX, developed alongside the BWT Alpine Formula One team's engineers to be the closest cockpit to the Formula Racing experience.