Gasly: ​​“It will rather be up to me to guide the team in terms of development”

How do you feel heading into this new campaign?

I'm in the best physical shape of my life, so in that respect, I'm really satisfied. Already last year, I made good progress during the first confinement. There I trained for a month and a half. Physical tests were recently carried out in Austria and the results were excellent. I'm ready to attack this season.

You have been dubbed as the new leader ofAlpha Tauri. Are you ready to take on the role and how will that translate to the team?

I'm completely ready. Afterwards, my approach didn't really change. You just have to keep in mind that I have a new teammate who has less experience. In other words, it will rather be up to me to guide the team in terms of development, to push them in the directions that I favor to improve my performance. I could do it before, but I teamed up with riders who were as experienced as me or who had a little more bottle. It’s more at this level that things are moving. Afterwards, the approach that we have adopted since my return to Faenza (in the summer of 2019. Editor's note) has proven to be very good. We will have to maintain this good dynamic to try to optimize performance each time.

They say the greatest good things about your new sidekick, Yuki tsunoda. How do you envisage this collaboration?

We will have to work hard together on behalf of the team. That's what matters most to me. As for the rest, I haven't really looked into it. If Yuki is in F1, is that he is a very good pilot, very gifted. He seems to adapt very quickly. The most important thing is to quickly form a good duo to push the team forward.

Watch the full interview with Pierre Gasly in AUTOhebdo N°2300.