Pierre Gasly achieved the three targets he set himself in Abu Dhabi by guaranteeing Alpine sixth place in the constructors’ World Championship, passing Nico Hulkenberg for 10th in the drivers’ version, and making it to the end of the 2024 season without causing any damage.
Gasly started the season finale from fifth on the grid and jumped up to third at the start after Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri tangled in front of him.
Subsequently the faster cars of George Russell, Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc and the recovering Verstappen all passed him, but crucially the Frenchman stayed in front of Haas driver Hulkenberg on his way to seventh place.
As well as securing sixth in the championship for Haas he moved ahead of Hulkenberg by one point.
“I was obviously in third, and that was nice,” Gasly said of the early laps. “And I thought I’m in third, I have George in between me and Nico. It’s better to keep him there! But he wasn’t too keen on staying behind me, so I had to fight him quite hard.
“And then after, I must say, Lewis and Charles were incredibly fast. I knew the target was, anyway, the Haas and Nico and the entire race, he was within two seconds, keeping a lot of pressure.
“So I could not afford to do any mistakes, and even with the tyres, really trying to keep them until the end of the race, which was very tough, because we made a very long stint on hards. But we made it happen.”
Regarding his personal targets for the race he said: “Sixth in the constructors’, I nicked 10th in the drivers’ championship from Nico in the last in the last race.
“There were three targets to get sixth in the constructors’, 10th in the drivers’, and keep my nose clean so that we still have zero dollars damage. And yeah, we all completed the targets.”
Alpine team principal Oliver Oakes stressed that beating Hulkenberg was more important than the overall race result.
“The first lap was quite welcome when we did Turn 1 and went, okay, this is good!” he said.
“A little bit apprehensive with Mercedes behind, he [Russell] kept us honest. Our race today was against Nico. I think obviously there was good and bad from that, we probably could have been greedy and tried to push on in the first stint.
“But I think obviously covering Nico off was the main focus today. And I think credit to the guys and girls for the calls for that.”
