Colapinto rues strategy after going ‘backwards’ in Canada as Gasly admits Alpine ‘need to review’

Franco Colapinto was left to rue a “wrong” strategy after slipping backwards and out of the points at the Canadian Grand Prix, while Alpine team mate Pierre Gasly also conceded that the team “need to review” following a tough afternoon in Montreal.

Things had initially looked promising for Colapinto, who lined up in P10 on the grid after outqualifying Gasly for the first time since making his F1 comeback. However, after losing a position early on to Kick Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg, the Argentine later lost out further when he found himself in traffic following his first pit stop.

It proved to be a difficult race from then onwards for Colapinto and he ultimately crossed the line in 13th, having been unable to work his way back up into the top 10.

“I think we maximised what we’ve done today. It just didn’t go our way, I think, strategy-wise,” the 22-year-old reflected after the race. “It was tricky to know [if] we were doing the wrong thing, but I think we definitely were doing the wrong stuff.

“At the beginning of the race, stopping early with so many cars starting on [the] hard [tyre], and the team mates of the guys in front making the race slow for them – it just put us in a really bad position, killing the tyres.

“I had really slow pace after that pit stop with the dirty air and [it was] very tricky to overtake, just power [limited] on the straights and it just made our race very tricky. We went a bit backwards.

“It was tough out there today, I think still [there were] some things learned and some things to take, but we need to focus on the next one.”

Despite the disappointing outcome, Colapinto acknowledged that the weekend as a whole had felt like his strongest since making his return to the grid with Alpine in Imola.

“Yeah, it feels like that,” he explained. “It’s just that when you start in the points you want to stay there, and it feels like we didn’t do the right things today to try and stay [there], and that’s the only thing.”

It was also a challenging day at the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve for Gasly. The Frenchman had it all to do after starting from the pit lane – due to changes being made to his car under parc ferme conditions – and a one-stop strategy failed to move him closer towards the points, meaning that he ended the race in P15.

“We tried with the strategy – to be fair, we tried everything we could,” Gasly admitted. “[We were] just very slow in the straights, so we need to review exactly what we could have done better.

“I think we had some pace, it’s just been a very frustrating afternoon, being stuck behind cars, and unfortunately we’re just slower than them in the straights and it made it very, very tricky to pass, so we’ll review it.”

Gasly’s tricky afternoon also saw him forced wide onto the grass by Lance Stroll during a battle for P17, an incident that resulted in the Aston Martin driver receiving a 10-second time penalty.

Reflecting on the clash, the 29-year-old said: “We kind of got side-by-side into the last corner. I feel like he could have done a slightly better job to give me a bit more room – not talking about much, I know we’re both at the limit and we’re talking a few centimetres.

“But unfortunately it put me in the grass – I had to try to cut the chicane and get back on track. I think bigger picture is just [that it was] a bit of a frustrating afternoon, not being able to race.”