After two retirements, Pierre Gasly finally crossed the finish line, but only in fourteenth position (which later became thirteenth with Russell’s disqualification), an insufficient result for the driver in a weekend frustrated by the achievements of the Alpine team, which had already started qualifying with an elimination in Q2, while Q1 seemed very promising.
“We didn’t optimise our runs and tyre preparation in changing conditions and I felt like I was lacking grip at the rear. We didn’t do everything we could to get to Q3 and we need to better understand how to maximise our performance,” analysed the French driver.
In the race, the trend has not been completely reversed, as the Frenchman has had to deal with multiple problems with his car that have prevented him from really fighting for points on Sunday, units that are nevertheless valuable for Alpine if the team wants to distance itself from Williams in the constructors’ championship.
Speaking on Canal+, the former AlphaTauri driver harshly criticised his team: “It’s been a total disappointment, we’re losing seven tenths per lap on all the straights. There are too many problems. The steering wheel is not straight in the car, we’re completely stopped on the straights, with engine temperature problems.”
Unfortunately we made two stops… There are too many mistakes and unfortunately in the last three weekends that has been the result of every race, so I think it will be important to get our composure back during this summer break.
After 14 race weekends, Gasly is 15th in the championship with six points, one more than his teammate, who only scored two this weekend. With 11 points, compared to 57 at the halfway point last year, the French team is having a disappointing season, with tensions on and off the track.
“It’s been a very, very difficult start to the season. We’ve picked up around 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 intense work before returning to Zandvooror and no one in the team is planning to rest, especially Pierre Gasly: «We cannot disconnect at all, there are many things to improve and we will have to discuss together and solve these problems very quickly.
With this summer break, the French team will have time to analyse all the data to try to understand where they can find even more performance to be in a better position and achieve better results.
