Pierre Gasly: (en) It’s been a positive weekend and we’ll have to build on that
The Belgian Grand Prix ended in 11th place for Pierre Gasly, just outside of the points. However, the Frenchman remains positive about his weekend thanks to his 3rd place achieved during the sprint race and a good strategy.
Pierre Gasly finished just outside the points. The French driver had a stroke of bad luck at the start of the race, getting stuck behind Oscar Piastri’s slow-moving car in the Raidillon. He then pulled off a superb overtaking maneuver on Alexander Albon, even though the Alpine seemed unable to compete with the Williams on the straight, even with DRS.
« There are several things that did not go as planned. I had a great start, managed to overtake two cars on the start, exited the first corner well, and found myself on the inside line with a car on my right. I got stuck behind Piastri who was going at snail’s pace on the raidillon, and I couldn’t move to the right, so I dropped from 10th to 17th place which was not expected when starting with the soft tires. From there, I think the team wanted to bet on the incoming rain. We had to go extremely far with the soft tires, which was not the initial plan, stated the Alpine driver on Canal+.
To make up for the drop in the ranking, the team chose to extend the Normand’s stint to wait for the rain. Rain that did not come down hard enough to help the driver.
« We tried to stay outside for the rain, it came, but unfortunately not strong enough. Behind us, we tried to make a pit stop and it was complicated with the midfield, we made a pit stop that wasn’t ideal and came out behind the Williams. It’s a shame because I think there was clearly a way to gain 2 or 3 seconds here and there and get some points, but it didn’t pay off today, although it worked well for us yesterday. Overall, I would say it was still a positive weekend and we’ll have to build on that, » added the former AlphaTauri driver.
Overtaking a Williams in a straight line is not an easy task. Pierre Gasly can attest to that. The 27-year-old driver probably executed the most impressive overtaking maneuver of the weekend to pass Alexander Albon. A frustrating battle for the Frenchman.
« I had to stay calm because honestly, today I don’t understand what happened in the straight line. We will have to look at it with the engine because we were really strong in the straight line all weekend, and today I just couldn’t do anything compared to the others, even though it had been our strong point since the beginning of the weekend. Even with the DRS, I couldn’t catch up to Alex Albon. I tried a little bit everywhere to see what I could do.
In the end, we had a possibly impressive brawl from the outside, but on the inside, it was a bit more frustrating because we lost a lot of time, but that’s racing and I gave it my all inside the car,” recounted the number 10 of the Franco-British team.
A good overall result for the weekend
Despite a disappointment in the main race, Esteban Ocon’s teammate is still satisfied with his weekend at Spa. During the sprint race, the driver finished on the podium.
« I’m leaving with at least a small trophy, it always brings a smile. There are some very good things to take away and others that are not so good. We will really have to work and improve. We will try to come back stronger in the second half of the season because there are things to do, we just need to put it all together » concluded the pilot.
