The Frenchman joined the Enstone-based squad at the start of this year, and he hoped it would be able to improve on its fourth-place finish in the 2022 constructors’ championship standings.
Alpine, on the other hand, has faced a challenging season marked by various incidents and internal conflicts.
Gasly and his teammate, Esteban Ocon, have unintentionally collided with each other on two occasions, causing the A523 to fall behind in the race and leaving the team in sixth place in the rankings.
Behind the scenes, there has also been turmoil, as former CEO Laurent Rossi launched a scathing attack on the squad at the Miami Grand Prix.
Afterwards, he was relocated before the team decided to separate from team principal Otmar Szafnauer and sporting director Alan Permane due to disagreements regarding the team’s ability to bounce back.
Gasly acknowledges that the journey has been challenging, but he believes that unfortunate circumstances have also contributed to Alpine’s setbacks. This is particularly evident in Melbourne, where a collision during a red-flag restart resulted in the loss of valuable points.
Gasly expressed that the first half of the year has posed several challenges, making it quite difficult.
Pierre Gasly, Alpine A523
Photo by: Alpine
I believe that, in general, this season has been the most unfortunate one for me in Formula 1 when compared to all previous seasons.
“There were a couple of missed opportunities, which had like a sort of snowball effect and a pretty big impact on the final results. So obviously, it doesn’t reflect, the full potential of the package.
However, we have not achieved the level of competitiveness that we had initially aimed for this year.
“Alpine had a strong finish, securing fourth place [in 2022]. At the start of this year, we were ranked fifth, trailing behind Aston. However, McLaren’s development surpassed ours, causing us to fall to sixth place. This outcome is certainly not what we aimed for this season.”
“It would be a lie to say that we matched the expectations. But we still have half a year to go and there’s still quite a lot of stuff in the pipeline in terms of developments.
“I don’t expect a complete turnaround for the entire season, but I am optimistic about our ability to improve in the latter half of the year.”
Gasly stated that the team’s difficulties in achieving desired outcomes are not solely attributed to a single factor. Rather, the A523 faces multiple challenges that require attention and improvement.
He stated that there are clearly various aspects that can be enhanced. One of these is the overall downforce, which increases the load and consequently improves speed.
“And then there is obviously improvement of the through-corner balance, which is another topic with the sensitivity through different conditions.
Currently, we are actively pursuing improvement in all aspects, to be honest. Therefore, there isn’t a specific area that is weaker compared to the rest. Our main objective is to enhance the overall package. Unfortunately, we have not achieved the progress we anticipated.
Leave a Reply