Gasly promises good days for Alpine : "The car is better than in 2024"

Pierre Gasly spent a long time staring into space this Thursday morning during his press conference. The Frenchman was associated with George Russell (Mercedes), but especially to Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls), who concentrated the majority of questions after his downgrade from Red Bull to Team B following the Chinese Grand Prix.

Gasly still had the opportunity, between questions about his time at Red Bull and his former teammate Yuki tsunoda, to evoke the gloomy start to the season ofAlpineThe French team occupies last place in the standings, being the only one with a counter still stuck at zero points after two Grands Prix.

The Normans narrowly missed out on points in Australia and then China, with Pierre Gasly crossing the line 11th on both occasions. The former driver Alpha Tauri was the victim of a bad strategy in Melbourne, while in Shanghai, its car was weighed one kilo under the permitted limit after the finish, causing his disqualification. While Gasly was out of the points anyway, he could have gotten back into it thanks to the downgrading of the two Ferrari in front of him, but he too was caught by the patrol.

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"I think in China, objectively, as a team, we underperformed a little bit," analyzes number 10. “We realized after the weekend that there were obviously a few things we would have done differently in hindsight. That’s why I remain confident. We have a good package, we have the performance to fight in the top 10. We are still at the beginning of the season, we are still learning the car and getting the most out of it. So it’s good to have three races coming up at different circuits, and I’m looking forward to racing.”

Pierre Gasly: ​​"We will be in the running for the top 10 in the next races"

Between Japan, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, Pierre Gasly will indeed be able to test himself on a variety of tracks, where he hopes to finally open his points tally. The urgency, however, lies above all on the other side of the garage, where a top 10 finish would provide a welcome confidence boost to Jack Doohan, the Australian rookie who is still chasing his first points in Formula 1After a crash in Australia, he failed to take any points from Shanghai, despite three disqualifications ahead of him.

This should happen in the coming weeks – if Alpine gives him time – because according to Pierre Gasly, the A525 is better than its predecessor, which allowed him to shine at the end of last season. "It's a step forward. Now everyone has improved. If you look at the whole grid, the gap is extremely tight," Gasly notes. “So I think it all comes down to fine-tuning the car for each circuit. Right now, within two tenths of a second, there are probably six or seven positions to be decided. Unfortunately, we didn't perform well enough in China, but we know why. That's why I'm fully confident that we'll be in contention for the next three races. We know what we have to do. We have to focus on ourselves, on our work, and just have a solid weekend. We'll be in contention. It's going to be a very close season and we'll have to make the most of every weekend.”

Last year, it took six races to Alpine to secure its first point, and the French team had been ghostly throughout the first part of the season before winning 52 of its 65 points over the last five weekends. A crazy comeback to sixth place in the Constructors' Championship, made possible in particular by the fantastic double podium ofEsteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly at Brazil. Since then, the situation has changed: the first mentioned is having fun with Haas (5th in China), while the second is looking for the light at the end of the tunnel. Suzuka is the perfect place to finally start moving forward.

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