Pierre Gasly reflected on a good practice day for the Monaco Grand Prix on Thursday, with the Frenchman looking competitive throughout and ending fourth fastest overall in the afternoon session.
The Red Bull Racing driver was only sixth fastest in the opening session, but the team made changes to the car set-up ahead of the second session, with Gasly much happier with how the car felt, particularly in the longer runs around the streets of Monte Carlo. This left him fourth, a tenth of a second faster and two places ahead of team-mate Max Verstappen.
Should it be dry, Gasly expects Mercedes-AMG Motorsport to be ahead of them on Saturday and Sunday, particularly after the pace that both Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas showed on Thursday, but he hopes Red Bull can fight Scuderia Ferrari to be best of the rest. However, if the forecasted rain arrives on Saturday, he believes that they will be in with a shout of beating Mercedes in Qualifying.
“It was a good day and I’m really happy,” said Gasly. “FP1 was a little difficult, but we made some changes for FP2 and I felt a lot better in the car, even in the long runs.
“As we expected, Mercedes are really fast and quite a long way ahead of us, but we can see we’re in a fight with Ferrari. If it’s raining on Saturday then anyone has a chance, but the Team is usually pretty strong here.
“There is still some work to do but hopefully we can find even more performance for Saturday, when it’s all about qualifying and getting a good starting position. We’ll do everything we can.”
