Jack Doohan is feeling ready to bounce back at the upcoming Chinese Grand Prix following his crash out of his first home race in Australia, while Alpine team mate Pierre Gasly has also voiced his confidence about the team’s prospects after just missing out on points.
After a solid Qualifying saw Gasly and Doohan line up in ninth and 14th respectively for Sunday’s event, the wet weather caught Doohan out on the opening lap of action, the rookie spinning off into the barriers and out of the running.
Reflecting afterwards on what had caused the incident, Doohan said: “I didn’t really understand what happened, to be honest, until I got back. Just looking at it, whether it was the white line, the inters not up to temperature, it just seemed as I upshifted to fourth I lost the car.
“Lesson learned, and I made sure that I spent some time with the boys to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.
“We have a race weekend already next weekend in Shanghai, so we’re going to regroup, keep our heads high. We’ve had a strong package this weekend, very strong yesterday afternoon, so we need to keep strong and bounce back next weekend.”
With the weekend having looked decent up until that point for Doohan, the 22-year-old was asked whether his exit had been particularly tough given that it had been at his home event.
‘Lesson learnt’ – Doohan explains what happened after he crashed out on Lap 1 in Melbourne
“Yes and no,” Doohan responded. “To be honest, I don’t seem to have really been affected by this whole home race stuff. In the end, I’ve been very tunnel-visioned and focused. It’s felt like any other race for me.
“I will have plenty more in the future to enjoy and just bounce back from this one.”
On the other side of the garage, Gasly had potentially looked on course for a strong result during the latter stages of the race, having managed to stay out on track with the slick tyres for as long as possible.
However, given the increasingly treacherous conditions, the Frenchman eventually pitted for intermediates and slipped down the order, crossing the line in 11th place.
“We thought we were doing the right choices by staying out in those very tricky conditions, so I think we were running top three in those extra laps we were doing,” Gasly explained after the race.
“I could see pretty much every three [or] four corners a car off, so I really thought, ‘Okay, as long as we keep it in-between the white lines, we’ll be fine – I might manage to overtake Yuki [Tsunoda]’.
‘It shows there is some potential’ – Gasly reflects on just missing out on points in Australia
“It was a bit of a lottery, we gambled on doing those extra laps which cost us the position on the cars behind, I think at that time [it] was [Kimi] Antonelli and some other guy, so we’d finish fifth.
“[It’s a] shame, I’m not going to get drawn into it because, at the end of the day, the whole race we were fighting in the points and [we got to] Q3 yesterday.
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“Some good stuff to take from today, obviously there are things to improve. I struggled a lot with the brakes and at the last six laps my front right disc just went off, so I just couldn’t brake and was locking everywhere. So a couple of things to improve, but just a shame it didn’t come our way.”
Despite the disappointment of missing out on points, Gasly acknowledged that the team’s performance during the weekend had given him hope for what might be possible at the upcoming Chinese Grand Prix and the rest of the approaching races.
“I’m confident we’ll be in the mix,” the 29-year-old said. “We were in the fight with Yuki and [Alex] Albon and we were P5, P6, something like that. It definitely shows there is some potential.
“There are things to improve which didn’t feel quite at best, but I’m sure it’s the same for everyone – it’s only the first race of the year. It would have been nice to get rewarded for that race, but we’ll try again next week.”
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