AlphaTauri had another tough F1 race as they came away with a zero in the French GP, and Pierre Gasly admitted his disappointment after the updates the AT03 received at Paul Ricard
AlphaTauri had hoped to raise its performance at last weekend's French GP after arriving in Paul Ricard with a new upgrade package for the AT03. However, the scenario went as badly as possible for the team, which left Le Castellet completely zeroed out. And Pierre Gasly, who finished only 12th, expressed his disappointment with the Italian car's lack of performance in his home country.
"We tried to fight our way back into the points and what we got was 12th place, which is clearly not the performance we wanted," Gasly admitted. "The fans and spectators turned the weekend into something special to put a big smile on my face, but I am extremely disappointed by the performance we showed," he criticized.
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Pierre's difficult weekend started even before the race, when he was eliminated in Q1 of qualifying. The French driver couldn't explain the car's difficulties on the French track, but complained about the AT03's lack of grip and said he tried "everything he could" throughout the race, but nothing could solve the difficulties of the AlphaTauri set-up.
"If I knew what the problem is, we could have fixed it," he lamented. "But it was simply slipping too much, with very little grip, especially in the high-speed corners. I tried everything I could on the car to force it, I changed the [racing] lines, but nothing I did worked," he explained.
"I don't want to rush to conclusions, but based on the pace we had, we have to understand why Friday went so well and then we just suffered from there," he questioned. "We finished only 3s behind tenth, so we're not miles behind. But there are no points for 11th and 12th," he pointed out.
Finally, Gasly highlighted the balance between the teams that occupy the middle of the pack at the moment, notably Alpine, McLaren, Haas, Alfa Romeo, and AlphaTauri. While Aston Martin and Williams are still running on the outside, Ferrari and Red Bull occupy the ranks of leading forces - and Mercedes is running alone in third place.
"Now it's important to try to understand this new package [of updates]. It will take some time, but it's tight in the middle of the pack, so we have to find solutions," he admitted. "We still have a few days before Budapest so that as a team we stay together and find the solutions, to take a good step forward," he closed.
The next stop for Formula 1 takes place this weekend, with the Hungarian GP scheduled to take place between July 29 and 31.