Gasly: A great way to mark my debut with Alpine

Pierre Gasly's 109th grand prix, on his seventh season on Formula 1, was his first outside of the Red Bull family, and despite a disappointing qualifying that saw him line up last on the grid, the former AlphaTauri driver bounced back in the race to finish ninth bagging two points.

What made Gasly's result even more important for Alpine was the chaotic race his teammate Eseteban Ocon had, as he was slapped by multiple penalties only to retire from the race.

"I'm happy with the race and it's a great way to mark my debut with Alpine," Gasly said of his maiden race for Alpine.

"After Qualifying we were all feeling disappointed as that's not where we aimed to be, so well done to the entire team for their hard work in turning it around for the race," he added.

"It was always going to be challenging to take points today, but we had confidence in the performance of our race car and we knew we had a chance to score points with a good strategy.

"We need to continue to work hard, we have a good base and it's important we now build on that. I know there's much more to come from us.

"It was a pity with what happened to Esteban, and we'll debrief collectively to make sure we're in a better position to help both cars score points," Gasly concluded.

Otmar Szafnauer, Alpine's team boss, praised his new driver on his first outing with the team; he said: "Pierre did a fantastic job to put behind a very disappointing Saturday and come back strongly to go from the back of the grid to the points, so credit to him on a solid debut.

Alpine finished the 2022 F1 season fourth in the Constructors' Championship.