Pierre Gasly: “There are far too many mistakes” by Alpine
Thirteenth at the finish of the Grand Prix following Russell's disqualification, the Norman made no secret of his disappointment after the race. He felt that the team was unable to optimize its strategies and suffered from too many reliability problems.
After two retirements, Pierre Gasly finally crossed the finish line, but only in fourteenth position (which then turned into thirteenth with Russell’s disqualification), a result insufficient for the driver in a weekend frustrated by what the Alpine team achieved. It started as early as qualifying with an elimination in Q2 while Q1 seemed very promising.
« We did not optimize our runs and tire preparation in changing conditions, and I felt like I was lacking grip at the rear. We did not put all the odds on our side to reach Q3 and we need to better understand how to maximize our performance,” analyzed the French driver.
In the race, the trend did not really reverse, the Frenchman having to deal with multiple issues on his car, preventing him from truly fighting for points this Sunday, units that are nevertheless valuable for Alpine if the team wants to distance itself from Williams in the constructors’ championship.
On Canal+, the former AlphaTauri driver strongly criticized his team: “It was completely disappointing, we lose seven tenths every lap in all the straights. There are way too many problems. The steering wheel is not straight in the car, we are completely stopped in the straights, with engine temperature issues.”
Unfortunately, we made two stops… There are far too many mistakes, and unfortunately over the last three weekends, it’s sort of been the outcome of each race, so I think it’s going to be important to regain composure during this summer break.
After 14 race weekends, Gasly is in fifteenth place in the championship with 6 points scored, one more than his teammate who has just scored two this weekend. With 11 points scored, compared to 57 at the mid-season last year, the French team is experiencing a disappointing season, with tensions on and off the track.
« It was a very, very complicated start to the season. We scored about ten points as a team and it will be important to do much, much better in the second half of the season. » Alpine faces four weeks of intensive work before returning to Zandvoort and nobody in the team plans to rest, especially not Pierre Gasly: « We can’t disconnect at all, there are many things to improve and we will need to discuss together and solve these problems very quickly.
With this summer break, the French team will have time to analyze all the data in order to try to understand where they can find even more performance in order to be in a better position and achieve better results.
