After a strong 2021 season, the Faenza side have shown somewhat erratic form this year, often falling to the bottom of the midfield pack.
However, Pierre Gasly is reluctant to blame a lack of resources relative to his immediate rivals, insisting the team has a strong core of people who can tackle current problems.
“Compared to the big teams like Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull, we know what they have built in the last 10 years, facilities, people, resources, they are more efficient,” he explained, “but at the same time I think we have people who are very, very good, and also the right tools to be competitive”.
“So, to be honest, I don’t have the answer as to why we seem to struggle more than other teams in the midfield, because I don’t think we’re missing something in the core of the team.”
“That’s why I think we have to take a step back and look at the whole situation, the big picture, what we’re doing from an aerodynamic point of view, the direction we’ve taken or how we’ve decided to use the budget cap, because I know from At the beginning of the year we are already quite at the limit, like at the beginning of the season”.
“Is that the main reason? I don’t know at all. But yeah, we’ll keep pushing and hopefully we’ll find some things to develop in the next couple of weeks.”
Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri AT03
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
Gasly is hopeful that he and the team can come back strong after the summer break.
“Yeah, I have to say I quite like the second part of the year, all these races away from home and interesting tracks coming up.”
“I think from our side it’s really good that there is a summer break, and that we can use this time, first to disconnect, but also to get together and try to understand everything that is happening in the team and the car.
“Because I think we started the year closer to the front of the midfield, even though we’re not right there now, we have a better sense of performance. Others seem to have created a bigger gap, and we haven’t been able to keep up with them.”
“We will work together. I know what we can achieve and I know we have some very good people, now it’s about finding solutions to turn this knowledge and skills into better lap times on track.”
Gasly insisted that the key is to continue to progress with successful update packages .
“We knew at the beginning of the season that this year was going to be a development race, new rules, new cars… People are going to develop their car throughout the year.”
“It doesn’t really matter how you start, the important thing is to have an upward curve throughout the year.”
“And I think we started out in a good position, but then we slowed down a little bit with all the problems we had with porpoising and stuff.”
“Now, two tenths in the middle zone can mean going from eighth to sixteenth. So we have to make sure we maximize the full potential of what we are going to have the rest of the year.”
