Pierre Gasly concerned about McLaren’s pace after Austria

A small point for Pierre Gasly in Austria, that’s it. As for Esteban Ocon, the result is no better: 2 points in the sprint race and nothing on Sunday. On the contrary, Alpine could only witness the magnificent performance of Lando Norris, who finished 4th in the race after Carlos Sainz’s penalty. The improvements made to Norris’ McLaren seemed to help the team gain performance. And this makes Pierre Gasly a little worried, as he doesn’t want to see the Woking team climbing up the standings. The French driver even fears a comeback and doesn’t think it’s really a good sign for Alpine.

McLaren puts pressure on Alpine

The weekend clearly wasn’t the one desired by Alpine. Lacking performance and experiencing track limits issues on numerous occasions, the French team missed out on their weekend. And when we see where Lando Norris finished, we have reason to worry for Alpine.

“« McLaren has been extremely fast, which is not really a good sign for us, but at the same time, it must motivate us. It shows that it is possible to make big progress,” stated Pierre Gasly.

Indeed, McLaren and Lando Norris have always performed well at the Red Bull Ring, including podium finishes in previous years. This year, it’s the circuit they chose to bring a package of improvements to Norris’ car, and it has clearly helped the driver. A fast and easy-to-drive McLaren allowed Lando Norris to secure valuable points for his team. While Alpine struggled to build a competitive weekend, McLaren seized the opportunity and made their updates work perfectly. The gamble paid off, and now they need to capitalize on this weekend at Silverstone, where McLaren will be celebrating the 60th anniversary of its founding by Bruce McLaren.

Pierre Gasly is not fatalistic

However, the French driver believes that everything is still achievable and that we simply need to not give up in the development of the car. He even says that everything is in our hands. For Alpine, there is no room for error.

« I think we maximized the race and the points we could score today. On the other hand, it feels like we want more and we want to fight closer to the top 5. Right now, we just lack two or three tenths compared to Fernando Alonso and the Mercedes who finished just ahead of us,” Gasly explained about his race.

He specifies that there are some positive points, but that there is still a lot of work to be done in order to compete with the top teams. Pierre Gasly reveals that he is nonetheless quite confident in his team’s work and especially hopes that Alpine will be able to raise its level of performance. We have planned improvements for the upcoming races, so I can’t wait to see how that will turn out. We know the weaknesses of the car and the areas that need improvement at the moment, but it’s not so easy to solve. I hope that some of these improvements will help us, he concluded.