21/4/2024
Chinese Grand Prix
Esteban started from P13 on New Mediums, finished P11
Pit Stops on Lap 9 for New Hards, Lap 23 for New Hards
Fastest Lap: 1min 40.937secs
Pierre started from P15 on New Mediums, finished P13
Pit Stops on Lap 11 for New Hards, Lap 23 for New Hards, Lap 38 for New Mediums
Fastest Lap: 1min 39.198secs
Esteban Ocon: “As expected, it was a hectic race today with plenty of action and close racing, which was really fun from behind the wheel. Overall, we managed the race and the tyres well. The positive is that we were more competitive here and put ourselves in contention for points, but narrowly missed out in the end - albeit being the best result of the season. We made a small step in performance this weekend, with the new parts the team brought to the track working as expected. Thank you to the team for fast-tracking the upgrades, but we must keep improving in order to remain in the fight for points in the coming races, continuing in Miami in two weeks’ time.”
Pierre Gasly: “We can be encouraged with the outcome today looking at the performance this season so far. It was quite interesting how the race unfolded and there are a few areas where we lost time today, but I am glad we managed to recover some places. We will take a lot of learnings with us. There is a lot for us to analyse and understand from this weekend, which we will focus on in the coming days preparing for the next race in Miami. I am already looking forward to being back in the US, where we will have the opportunity to run with the new package on my side for the first time. Until then, the team will continue to work hard, so we can make sure we can continue improving and get us closer back to where we want to be. The Chinese fans put on a great show today and it felt great to be back here after such a long time.”
Bruno Famin, Team Principal: “It was an incident-packed race with multiple Safety Car periods, meaning we needed to stay alert and be ready to react, which we did with a well-executed double stacked pit-stop. Esteban drove a great race to be within striking distance of scoring points, but just missed out in the end. Pierre also did well to recover and make up places after the delay in his first stop. Thankfully nobody was hurt, and we will investigate the reasons to avoid such incidents in future. What today shows is that we still have work to do, and as a team, we need to keep pushing for more performance, as we did not quite have enough today. Special thanks to the team at the factory, who put in a big effort to bring new parts to Shanghai, which performed as expected.”