Pierre Gasly: I will try to hold onto seventh place in the race.
In Suzuka, Pierre Gasly made it to the qualifying final for the second consecutive time, where he recorded the seventh fastest time. The Alpine driver considers this result the best possible, given the speed of the car.
For Franco Colapinto, qualifying ended in the second session – the Argentine driver explained that he couldn't fully realize the potential of the A526.
Pierre Gasly (7th): "I am very happy with seventh place in today's qualifying. The team did a great job to extract more speed from the car, so a big thank you to everyone for their work last night.
Yesterday, I wasn't particularly satisfied with the car and couldn't drive it the way I wanted, so we had a lot to analyze. We made progress – in the third practice, the car handled much better. Then the team adjusted the settings before qualifying, and thanks to that, the car handled better than in all the other sessions of the weekend, which is encouraging.
I think seventh place is the maximum we could achieve, considering the three leading teams are where they are. The fact that we were slightly behind Ferrari is a result of the team's excellent work.
Tomorrow it will be challenging to hold onto seventh place, as several fast cars are starting behind. But that is our goal – we need to capitalize on the high starting position and then not lose positions during possible restarts. On Friday, with a full tank, we looked pretty good, so I hope our pace will allow us to fight for points."
Franco Colapinto (15th): "Today's qualifying result did not meet expectations. Throughout the weekend, I've had issues with pace with an empty tank. The car handles much better with a full tank, and I hope it will be the same tomorrow.
The first part of qualifying went better than the second, where I couldn't make a step forward and fight for a place in the final, but Pierre managed to do that. I couldn't realize the full potential of the car.
With a new car, every detail is important to get it into the working range, and I couldn't achieve that. We need to keep working with the team to understand where we can improve. This is my first time racing in Suzuka – I liked the track, but it's very technical, so there are areas where I need to improve.
On Friday, we had a competitive race pace, so if we can maintain that, we can expect to gain positions in tomorrow's race."
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Pierre Gasly: I will try to hold onto seventh place in the race.
In Suzuka, Pierre Gasly reached the qualifying final for the second consecutive time, where he showed the seventh fastest time. The Alpine driver considers this result the best possible, taking into account the speed of the car.