Part 1: Pierre Gasly, Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso.
Q: Pierre, if we could start with you. First race weekend done, what conclusions have you reached about the potential of this year's Alpine?
Pierre Gasly: I mean, yeah, it's been... I don't even know where to start. There have been a lot of lessons taken from Melbourne. I think the main one is that, obviously, we're pretty far from being at the maximum potential of the package we've got in our hands, and there are a lot of things which we've got to improve, you know, car-wise, car understanding, set-up-wise, engine, maximising the energy, quali, race. I think it's good to have some sort of baseline. Objectively, we feel that we slightly underperformed in Melbourne and I expect us to be in a better place here in China. We've got already a couple of things which should bring us more performance into the car, like everybody, I think, in the paddock. But yeah, a lot to review, a lot learned and a lot to improve here.
Q: I was going to ask whether it was track-specific, because you seemed happier with the car in Bahrain testing and then less happy last weekend. Why was that? What were the main factors last weekend that you weren't suffering from in Bahrain?
PG:Again, I don't think it's down to a single thing, but I think ultimately everybody is developing their car. In Melbourne we've seen already some upgrades on a couple of cars, here as well. Difficult to say if it's track-specific, but clearly these conditions and the track layout worked and played less in our favour. But I think overall we just didn't do a perfect job in maximising our package. In free practice we had a couple of issues with the engine. We focused a lot on the energy, et cetera, and we probably missed some factors on the tyres, some factors in set-up, et cetera. So yeah, I think we know what we're going to improve and I'm confident we'll be in a better place, better shape, here. We were better on Sunday than we were on Saturday, so yeah, it just needs some fine-tuning.
Q: Tell us about the atmosphere inside the garage now, because you've come from 2025, which was a very tough season for the team. What is the mood now?
PG:The mood is we've all got to work harder, better. I think we all agree that we didn't start the season in the shape that we would have all liked and expected, but at the same time I don't think there's any alarm or any need to be dramatic about what we've got to improve. I think we're very aware, objective. This wasn't good enough. I'm confident we can turn things and put us in a better place straight away from this weekend.
Q: Alright, good luck with that. Thank you, Pierre. Esteban, let's come to you now. Haas were at the front of the midfield in Australia. Just how good does this car feel to drive, first of all?
Esteban Ocon: Yeah, I think it's been a strong start of season for us, for the team. I think we have a car that, like Pierre said, we have to understand further and that we are trying to maximise. After Australia it seemed to be not exactly where we wanted it to be in quali, but in quali, unfortunately, on the last run I had the floor that broke on that last lap, so we couldn't maximise the full potential there. But yeah, we seem to be performing well as a team in the race, and this is something that we need to take further into this race. Of course, there's only going to be one practice, so we need to make the most out of it. But it's been an interesting first weekend for us. All happy, obviously, that we are doing good progress and happy with the start point and the base of the car. I think it's a solid start, so it's a base that we can work on, definitely.
Q: You say it's a solid start. Given the struggles the team had in Melbourne last year, how much more confidence is there inside the team?
EO: Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about, is that the base of the car definitely has huge potential in terms of balance. When we put everything together it's definitely a much better step forward than where it was last year in Melbourne. Of course, we've had different issues last year and we managed to overcome those when we came to China, but now we don't have to panic and do a reset on most of these things. We have the base that we can work on, and if we do a good job throughout the weekend we can definitely be fighting for something decent, so I hope that this is going to be the case this weekend.
Q: Decent as in another top five like here last year?
EO: We'll see about that, but it would be nice for sure.
Q: Alright, good luck with that. Thank you, Esteban. Fernando, let's come to you now. Melbourne was extremely tough for Aston Martin and with only a week between races, what are the team's prospects here in China?
Fernando Alonso: Yeah, not really different, I would say. The situation unfortunately didn't change within four or five days since Melbourne, so yeah, I think it's going to be another difficult weekend, trying to understand as much as possible on the car and, you know, eventually limit the laps in a couple of the sessions because we are short on parts, and yeah, try to get something positive out of the weekend.
Q: What would a positive weekend for you look like?
FA: I think obviously when we are able to do laps without any issues, I think they are very important laps because even now here with Esteban and Pierre, they were not optimised for Australia and apparently it was the same case for everybody, and they are, I don't know, maybe ten times ahead of us. If they completed 1,000 laps since Barcelona test, we completed maybe 100, so we are nine or ten times behind. So, if they are still not perfectly optimised, imagine ourselves. We are at square one, so we really need the laps, we really need to be able to practice and to find the window on the car and the chassis side. That will obviously be very important for the weekend, and I will be happy if we leave China with a more or less normal free practice, more or less normal quali, accumulating laps and probably attempting the full race on Sunday, if we are allowed.
Q: Final one for me. Adrian Newey said last week that you must be in a, and I'm quoting him, "hard mental place" at the moment. Just how tough is the current reality for you?
FA: Less tough than what you think. I mean, not ideal. We all want to win. We are 22 drivers this year. One will win, 21 will be in a difficult and tough mental state, because for me to finish third or fifth or 17th, it really doesn't matter much. I was lucky enough and privileged enough to live different eras n Formula 1 and to have fun driving, and eventually super lucky to have competitive cars for half of my career and achieving more than 100 podiums in the category. So now to finish, as I said, in any other position that is not first, for me it's the same pain and the same struggle. Obviously, we are now in this journey with the team, which is not the ideal start, but it's the first year of this collaboration between Aston Martin and Honda and we have to go through this moment in time, and I'm ready to help as much as I can.
Questions From The Floor
Q: (David Croft - Sky Sports F1) Fernando, a question to you. Your answer then seems to be a very different Fernando to maybe the one that we had ten years or so ago, when your last association with Honda. What are you doing behind the scenes to help Aston Martin and Honda through the current situation, and what have you been told by Honda that might make you feel things will be different sooner rather than later?
FA: Yeah, about the ten-year difference, yes and no. I think I can see things now in a different perspective and a different maturity, but I don't think that ten years ago things were, again, that dramatic. This is Formula 1, a very media-centric sport. When you win a few championships just racing against your team-mate, you are God, and then when you are fighting and having some difficult period, everything is magnified as well. In a way, ten years later, some of the things that people thought about me ten years ago, when we had this situation, now they maybe changed opinion and maybe they think that I was right ten years ago, because for me the biggest surprise was all these last few years thinking that ten years ago McLaren, Stoffel, Jenson, myself - because always people seem to remember only Fernando, but I think Jenson, Stoffel and McLaren, we were saying the same - that project, the power unit, was not mature enough when we started, which everyone seems now to understand. But two or three years ago it seemed that I was crazy, ten years ago, criticising or something like that. It was, I think, a few frustrations on the radio, which, yeah, were there, and as a double world champion and a competitive driver, I was not happy with the situation - wow, you know, should I be happy and clapping inside the car about the job? So now I think when everyone sees from the outside that situation and they see the current situation, I think they are a little bit more friendly with us and they understand more the problems. And now what can I do in the team is just work harder, try to help Honda as much as we can, allocating some of the resources that Aston Martin has into the engine, into the power unit, into the vibration problems, into the deployment issues. Obviously, we are now in a different world in Formula 1 with all the data available, all the GPS, the analysis that we can have from the other teams, and we can allocate some of those resources to make Honda... or they can focus on one thing, and we can help them in some other areas on the power unit. So, we are one team. As I said, it's a bumpy start, but I hope it will not last for too long. But it will not be an immediate solution either, so yeah, let's see.
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