Gasly, just outside the points in Mexico, believes he knows the reason behind Alpine’s underperformance

Disappointment for Pierre Gasly. After a strong 6th place finish in Austin last weekend, the French driver failed to score points, just behind his teammate. His qualifying session was average. Exiting in Q2, he started the race in 11th place on the grid, five places ahead of his teammate Esteban Ocon. However, Gasly was unable to gain any positions throughout the race.

Pierre Gasly had made the decision to go on medium tires in order to quickly overtake his competitors. A choice that proved to be successful in the first few laps, as the Normandy native managed to take 9th place as early as the 2nd lap. A few laps before the red flag, Gasly, who was in 5th position, went to the pitstop to put on hard tires and attempt to stretch them until the end of the race. A strategic choice that made him come out in 12th position. However, Kevin Magnussen’s accident on the 33rd lap, a few minutes after the pitstop of Alpine’s driver, will annihilate the strategy.

“Unfortunately, the safety car arrived at the worst moment for us in the race,” Pierre Gasly lamented to Canal+ microphone after the race. “We are disappointed to lose 20 seconds, with a free pit stop, to Albon, Esteban, Tsunoda, the drivers we were battling with. Today was not our day and others were a little luckier.”

A complicated second relay.

For the second start, on the 36th lap of the race, Gasly once again took the 11th spot on the grid. The former AlphaTauri driver, struggling, will concede several positions, including one to his teammate Esteban Ocon. Finally, Gasly will benefit from a mistake by Tsunoda to gain one position. Towards the end of the race, the Frenchman manages to surpass Niko Hülkenberg to finish in 11th place in Mexico.

After the race, Pierre Gasly confessed to encountering several issues with his car. “I think today was the race with the most balancing problems,” he stated on Canal+. “I had a lot of cutouts during accelerations and I was losing a lot of time at the start of the straight line, so it was complicated. But it wasn’t our day. I believe we had the right strategy before the red flag. I hope next time things will go a little better for us.”

The lack of performance from Alpine this weekend at the Mexican Grand Prix echoes the strong performances of AlphaTauri right here. Pierre Gasly believes he has understood how AlphaTauri can achieve such great performance and has shared it with his new team.

« I have my ideas about the reasons why we are not competitive and why AlphaTauri is competitive, for example. I don’t want to comment on this subject. But there are obvious things and things that I have already told the guys that have cost us a lot in sector 1. I mean, these are things that you can even see from your TV. Look for yourself and you will see what I mean ».

Pierre Gasly finishes the race 3.329 seconds behind his teammate.