Pierre Gasly stumbled upon Alpha Tauri several times over the Russian Grand Prix weekend. The team first stabbed his timer and then when he could have improved, he was also not at the height of the situation either.
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As well as it started well, it continued so badly, then ended Pierre Gasly and Alpha Tauri’s race weekend at the Russian Grand Prix. The French driver already had a tantrum during the time trial after his team messed up his strategy and then hit a critical tone even after the race.
In the rainy qualifier, Gasly squeezed the lead in Q1 and then felt he should have gotten further from Q2 as well, but the team insisted not to put on a second set of intermediate tires, leaving him out on the drying track, so in the end, he couldn’t be fast enough on the worn tires.
As Gasly crossed the finish line in the last lap he measured, his engineer had already apologized to him on the radio for making a bad decision and not listening to their pilot, but that didn’t stop Gasly from beating the halo and the rudder in the runoff and then the garage. stop in front of you to get a tantrum.
“We easily had the pace to get to Q3. The car was very fast under these conditions, but then we stayed out in Q2 on the first set, which was completely worn out. I asked to stand in the box because I saw the track dry. In the end, we didn’t stand out, which was a big mistake, and it got into our Q3 performance, ”the still frustrated Frenchman smoked.
I don’t really understand why we did this. We clearly paid a big price to see what happened in Q3. It was a very missed opportunity. I felt the potential in the car. I slid back and forth in the last two nails and saw the lap times. One tenth was missing, while with new tires I could have gone faster by a second and a half. I already knew in Q1 that we have a huge potential to perform well in such circumstances. And when we qualify this back with so much potential, it makes me angry. “
For the pilot starting from 11th place, this mistake sealed his race, he couldn’t even finish in a scoring spot, even though the rain gave him a chance. Throughout the first leg of his hard rubber, he kept Valtteri Bottas behind him, who jumped over at the wheel change, but Gasly was still behind him afterwards. A 14-15. they drove in place when the heavenly blessing came, but while Bottas switched to intermediate tires in time and eventually finished fifth, Gasly stayed out for too long and only finished in 13th place. No wonder he was quite irritated again.
“We did the whole first stage in front of Bottas, in the second we were right behind him and then the rain arrived. Mercedes challenged him, we stayed out, he finished fifth, and we didn’t score. Apparently we didn’t expect any more rain to come in the end, so that’s unfortunate. We will look at how our forecast could be better, ”he said, then explained the chances of being missed again.
If we look at the last lap, we were four seconds faster than everyone on the interest, so we had the pace again, but we made too many mistakes this weekend and didn’t deserve points. ”
Gasly went so far as to question the team’s competence in general, which meant that Cunoda Juki, who was protruding in a lap with Bottas, was fitted with soft tires, so the Japanese could come again two laps later, this time for interest, a really legitimate proposition. It’s questionable how we do our thing because I know a group of smart people work on the team, but unfortunately we didn’t do a good job this weekend. We were allowed to lose a lot of points. We can’t afford such mistakes if we want to fight for constructor fifth place, ”Alpha Tauri pointed out.
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