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Belgian Grand Prix: Qualifying team notes - Alpine

NEWS STORY
18/07/2026

Pierre Gasly: "First of all, a big thank you to the team for fixing the car after what happened yesterday and having everything ready on time for today's running.

"It was a little unfortunate with where the barrier is at that corner with something similar happening to Lewis [Hamilton] in Free Practice 3. In terms of our Qualifying, I am not happy with P12 as Q3 is always our target. However, that is just the reality of where we are at the moment, and we have work to do if we want to be in the top ten tomorrow. There are some grid penalties, which means we start P10 and we'll try to capitalise on track position in the race. Our target is more likely to be the Audis rather than the Racing Bulls who have a lot of pace again. Longer-term we have to add more performance and try to get back in the fight with them. Spa is a track where there are a few good overtaking opportunities, so we'll try to make the most of our set-up, gain some places and target scoring points by the end."

Franco Colapinto: "We had hoped for more from Qualifying today in Spa but we will line-up in P11 for tomorrow's race with some grid penalties for cars ahead. I lost a bit of time on my final push lap so it might have been a little more for me, however, ultimately, we are just lacking pace relative to some of our rivals. It feels like we have made a small step on performance since Silverstone, which is positive, and hopefully we can carry that forwards into tomorrow when it counts. Of course, Racing Bulls again look strong and Audi are just ahead of us, so that's where our fight is. Going forwards, we need to understand where we are lacking and where we can improve so we can be ahead of them again. Now our focus is on tomorrow and our objective is to be in the points. We'll try to have a good start and put ourselves in contention to be up there inside the top ten."

Steve Nielsen: "In terms of our end result, it's certainly not what we set out to achieve, but that is an accurate reflection of just where the performance of our car lies at the moment. Racing Bulls and Audi have done a much better job recently to add more performance to the car and find those extra tenths of a second which prove the difference between Q2 and Q3. We will benefit from some grid penalties for other cars to start P10 with Pierre and P11 with Franco tomorrow and hopefully we can put some pressure on cars ahead at the start before settling into our own race from there. That will be our aim as we try to recover some positions and target points with both cars. Finally, a big well done and thank you to the mechanics in their repair job on Pierre's car from the damage sustained yesterday and having everything ready on time for today. It's never a straightforward task and everyone involved has done a great job."

Check out our Saturday gallery from Spa here.

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