‘Lesson learned’ – Jack Doohan ready to bounce back after Australian GP crash as Pierre Gasly confident Alpine will be ‘in the mix’

“It was a bit of a lottery, we gambled on doing those extra laps which cost us the position on the cars behind, I think at that time [it] was [Kimi] Antonelli and some other guy, so we’d finish fifth.

“[It’s a] shame, I’m not going to get drawn into it because, at the end of the day, the whole race we were fighting in the points and [we got to] Q3 yesterday.

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“Some good stuff to take from today, obviously there are things to improve. I struggled a lot with the brakes and at the last six laps my front right disc just went off, so I just couldn’t brake and was locking everywhere. So a couple of things to improve, but just a shame it didn’t come our way.”

Despite the disappointment of missing out on points, Gasly acknowledged that the team’s performance during the weekend had given him hope for what might be possible at the upcoming Chinese Grand Prix and the rest of the approaching races.

“I’m confident we’ll be in the mix,” the 29-year-old said. “We were in the fight with Yuki and [Alex] Albon and we were P5, P6, something like that. It definitely shows there is some potential.

“There are things to improve which didn’t feel quite at best, but I’m sure it’s the same for everyone – it’s only the first race of the year. It would have been nice to get rewarded for that race, but we’ll try again next week.”