Frustrated, Gasly bows to the performance of Alpine

In Qatar, Pierre Gasly missed a huge opportunity, both personally and collectively. Moved up to 2nd on the grid after the sanctions of Max Verstappen et Valtteri Bottas, the pilot Alpha Tauri experienced a difficult race where he simply couldn't do anything despite the excellent start to the weekend for an 11th place. 

« The race was very frustrating honestly, he told us from the Losail circuit. We had no speed. With Yuki (tsunoda), we each left in front of a Alpine but we simply fell down the rankings.

I find myself behind Alonso at the second turn. I manage to stay behind him for five laps at the start of the race. After that we tried an aggressive two-stop strategy but never showed a burst of performance during the race. As soon as we pushed, we overheated the front tires. We were just slow.

I don't know if it's due to the change of front wing or the flat bottom after yesterday's incident. (passing on the curbs which broke his front wing in qualifying). I don't know if that had an impact, just like the medium tires used in qualifying that we put back into the race. Either way, it was very frustrating. I tried to attack hard but we were light years behind the others. »

#QatarGP 🇶🇦

In difficulty, Pierre Gasly goes through Norris et Perez 😩

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— CANAL+ F1® (@CanalplusF1) November 21, 2021

Shoulder to shoulder with the Alpines for 5th place among the Manufacturers, Pierre Gasly did not hide his astonishment at the recovery in form of the blue single-seaters despite the tough conditions these last Grands Prix. “ Starting on softs, Alonso was driving faster at the end of his first stint than us even though we were on new medium tires., he emphasizes. Their speed was incredible. We saw their performance in Mexico and Brazil, and seeing them fly across the middle of the field with their two cars is incredible. Well done to them, they had a better weekend, especially today (Sunday). They finished 3rd and 5th, there is nothing to say. They performed much better than us and they deserve these points."

This poor performance of AlphaTauri allows Alpine to inflict a 25-0 on the Italian team. So many points now separate the two teams in the standings (137 to 112).

The replay of the start of #QatarGP🇶🇦 with the excellent flight of Max Verstappen!

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— CANAL+ F1® (@CanalplusF1) November 21, 2021

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