Pierre Gasly was at a loss for words to explain how he enjoyed a surprisingly strong Saturday at the Formula 1 Brazil Grand Prix.
The Alpine driver started by scoring a point with eighth in the sprint race at Interlagos before qualifying ninth for Sunday’s contest - Gasly was even just a tenth behind fourth-placed Oscar Piastri in Q3.
This comes after a very disappointing 2025 campaign for Alpine, which is bottom of the championship and has not scored a grand prix point since Gasly finished 10th at Spa in July.
When asked in Sao Paulo why he thinks he was so strong, Gasly said: "There are a few ideas, but the reality is we don't fully know. I don't want to say anything which might not be true.
"I know the guys are looking very deeply into it and it's quite complicated, but we need some answers. At the moment we have a lot of questions, not many answers. Hopefully we'll have some more in the coming weeks."
It is simply the swiftness of his turnaround that has surprised Gasly, because last time out in Mexico he only finished above team-mate Franco Colapinto and Williams driver Carlos Sainz.
Gasly was even a lap behind those at the front, which included runner-up Charles Leclerc, yet in the Brazil sprint the Alpine driver finished just three seconds behind the Ferrari in fifth.
"After Mexico, the only time I saw Ferrari was when he blue flagged us," said Gasly. "I didn't expect to see that on a sprint race two weeks later. It just shows how much better we are here."
He likened it to earlier in the year when Gasly qualified fifth in Bahrain and since then Alpine has just regressed, as updates failed to work as intended before the team stopped all car development to focus on 2026.
So, on the matter of his pace being potentially specific to Interlagos, Gasly said: "I think track characteristics play quite a big factor, but I cannot believe it's only down to that, so we've got to understand more."
Saturday was much harder for Colapinto though, who crashed out of the sprint before only qualifying 18th for Sunday’s grand prix - two spots lower than he managed in sprint quali.
"Generally, it just didn't feel very comfortable to drive," said Colapinto. "The team did a great job putting the car back together, it was very impressive. I was in qualifying, so I'm very grateful for it, but it just didn't feel very good.
"The performance of yesterday was not there as much today, and it's what I struggled with. Pierre was very competitive, so it's good to see that the car is fast, but we need to understand why he couldn't extract the lap time."
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