Gasly is oozing with confidence: “I think I am one of the six best drivers on the grid”
- Bo Helmus
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
Written by Bo Helmus
Pierre Gasly is flying this season. He scored points in every race that he finished so far, and to top all of that, he got a podium as well. He is eighth in the standings and all is looking good. But are there clouds on the horizon for the Frenchman?
This Friday in Austria wasn’t all clear skies for Gasly. In the first practice session, he only set the fourteenth time. Unlike the performances we’ve seen from the 30-year-old, he was 1.750 seconds off the pace. In the second session, he came in 11th place. It looks like there might be trouble in paradise.
Luckily, the Frenchman isn’t easily fazed by this. He simply mentioned it was a tricky day. The team has focused on data gathering, and apparently, they’ve done some “good learning”. They’ve got a bit of work to do, but nothing to lose sleep over.
Top six driver
And that Gasly isn’t losing sleep is clear from his oozing confidence, especially after his boss put him on a pedestal last week. Flavio Briatore, Alpine’s executive advisor, said Gasly is one of the six best drivers on the grid.
Gasly isn’t surprised: “I think I am. It’s nice to hear it from Flavio, but I’ve been here long enough to know that I’ve got to focus on my own business. I try to be the best I can every single time I’m in the car and sometimes the best I can do is a 15th place last year. It doesn’t mean that I’m a bad driver.
“Sometimes you get a car that allows you to finish in the top five, win or top 10, and you’ve just got to extract the best you can. I think I’m performing well. Can I get even better? Yes, I can, and that’s what I work for every day. I still think I can deliver even stronger performances than I’m doing, and that’s what I’ve got to work on.
“Yeah, it’s nice from Flavio and we’re working very well together, so I’m happy with the dynamic we have as a team and just want us to be able to perform even better than we’re doing.”
Top six team
You’re only as good as the car you’ve got, is what we hear Gasly say. Is the A526 any good? The Frenchman thinks it is: “I must say that the team so far has done a good job in terms of reliability. They’ve really been faultless so far. I think the car performance, we’ve seen from the start of the year, we seem to be able to fight in the points pretty much consistently every weekend. The midfield is kind of swinging one way or another depending on the weekend, depending on the track.
“Sometimes we’re slightly closer to the top four. At the start of the year, now we kind of dropped slightly. The last few weekends have been slightly more complicated but we’re still there and we’ve been very consistent. So yeah, happy on one side. On the other side, I’d like to see us catching the train ahead of us a little bit more, and hopefully that’s what we’ll be able to do in the coming weekends.”
Championship material
Briatore won’t give a timeline for when the Alpine can compete for wins. Gasly is hopeful: “I think the timeline is the same for all of us in the team: as soon as possible. What does that mean exactly? Realistically, we’ve got to look at what we can improve right now in the short term and know our strengths, weaknesses as a team, and how much time we have to put all the pieces together.
“I think Flavio has been here long enough to know that it doesn’t happen overnight. We all wish it could, but the reality is very different. I think the target was definitely to sort of be top of the midfield and slowly getting closer to the cars ahead, and that’s what we’ve got to focus on in the short term.
“But yeah, I fully believe in Flavio’s sort of master plan and what we’ve got to put in place. I think a lot of steps in the right direction have been taken since last year, and there’s still a long way to go until we achieve what we want to achieve in Formula 1 with Alpine. But I think eventually, I really hope we can achieve that.”
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