BWT Alpine F1 Team scored six points from today’s Miami Grand Prix with Pierre Gasly finishing eighth and Esteban Ocon ninth in a tightly contested race dominated by strategy at the Hard Rock Stadium.

Gasly made a bright start from fifth on the grid to take fourth at Turn 1, continuing his 100% start to the season with first lap gains at every race with Ocon too holding onto a top ten spot.

With Gasly on a Medium-Hard strategy he looked to fend off Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc who finished seventh and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton who came home in sixth, he narrowly fell short of staying ahead of the front-running pair in the closing stages.

Pierre Gasly, started in fifth and finished eighth said: “I’m very pleased with the outcome of today’s race, even if we dropped back from our grid position.

“It was always going to be a tough task to keep behind some of the faster cars like Max [Verstappen] and Charles [Leclerc] but to be fighting with the Ferrari and Mercedes right to the end of the race is definitely encouraging.

“We had to fuel save quite a bit in the second half of the race so the fact we were so close to that top six is a step in the right direction. After two challenging races for the team, it was important for us to score double points so credit to everyone for this result here in Miami.

“We’ll analyse everything, see where we can improve and arrive in Imola ready to keep battling and closing the gap to our rivals ahead.”

On a one-stop hard to medium plan, the latter stage of the race was where Ocon looked to gain places.

After an impressive opening stint where he ran as high as third place, the Frenchman settled for ninth with an uneventful race to the line after his late stop for medium tyres.

Esteban Ocon, started in eighth and finished ninth said: “It’s good to be back in the points with both cars after a decent race for the team today. We opted for the more aggressive strategy by going long on Hard tyres in the first stint and it did not quite pay off in the end.

“We had some good battles with Ferrari and Mercedes with a couple of good overtakes throughout. Our pace was strong so that is encouraging going forward. We are satisfied with our job today as I don’t think we could have done much more.

“Of course, there are things for us to review and improve but it’s a long season and I’m looking forward to the upcoming triple header in Europe where we need to string together three positive races.”

Formula One will head to Europe and the historic track at Imola on May 19-21.