Pierre Gasly was “nowhere” this weekend
The French had a complicated weekend. They had a collision during the sprint race and received two penalties during the race.
There are weekends when luck is not on our side. That’s what Pierre Gasly experienced during the Austrian Grand Prix. While the Frenchman seemed to be struggling at the beginning of the qualifying sessions, the AlphaTauri driver corrected his course as the session went on. On the verge of making it to Q3, he will not be able to participate, despite Sergio Perez’s time being canceled afterwards. A first setback.
So finishing 10th in the sprint race, the Grand Prix winner tried everything to climb back up, but right from the first corner, he collided with Lewis Hamilton and lost all hope of gaining positions.
The main race did not go in favor of the Frenchman. While battling with Sebastian Vettel, he sent the German into the gravel at turn 4. This action earned him a five-second penalty. He received a second penalty for repeatedly exceeding the track limits, like many other drivers.
Haas takes the lead again.
All these adventures finally placed him in 15th position. The weekend was a disaster, except for the qualifications. We are nowhere in terms of pace. I am doing my best in the car, but at the moment there is simply nothing to do, so I think we desperately need these developments on the car in order to be able to achieve decent results, regrets the Frenchman.
« No rhythm, I’m nowhere. Look at Yuki [16th], look at me… Even with the strategy, we lost a place when we came into the pit, but ultimately we simply don’t have any rhythm. We can do whatever we want, any strategy, but with such speed, we can’t continue like this. We need to start from scratch. Hopefully, we will have new parts coming, and hopefully, they will arrive for France, and we can show a better pace there.
« This [lack of rhythm] isn’t surprising if we don’t have any new parts and the others are progressing. You see, at the beginning of the year, we were fighting with the guys at the front. Now, we’re finishing 20 to 30 seconds behind. We’re losing four or five tenths per lap, and that’s what we need to find. »
This series of poor results is preventing the Italian team from moving up in the rankings. On the other hand, Haas, which is accumulating points, has just taken 7th place from AlphaTauri in the constructors’ championship. 27 to 34 in favor of the Americans.
