The Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda team had a disappointing qualification session at the 2021 Spanish Grand Prix at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya circuit. For the first time this season, the Italian team did not have any driver in the final qualification session.
Pierre Gasly finished in twelfth position and Yuki Tsunoda finished in sixteenth position on Saturday. Gasly has been outstanding in qualification consistently making it to the final session of qualification (Q3). Tsunofa on the other hand has struggled to make it out of the first session (Q1).
As the other midfield teams like the Alpine F1 Team and Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team have steadily improved from race to race, the AlphaTauri team has struggled in the last two races. The struggles continued at Barcelona in qualification.
Pierre Gasly was disappointed with his qualification and said: “I’m obviously disappointed with the final result, that’s the first time we’ve not made it through to Q3 this year and we missed it by just two hundredths, which is nothing. That being said, I’m happy with the car balance this weekend but we’ve really struggled with grip, we just seem to slide around, then overheat the tyres and on this track you really pay the price for that.
“I think we were slightly more competitive at the start of the year, so we need to go away and understand how we can regain that lead again in the midfield battle. Nevertheless, tomorrow is where we score points and we’ll be starting in P12 with a free tyre choice, which will hopefully give us a slight advantage in the race.”
Yuki Tsunoda – “It’s frustrating for me, the performance in the car is definitely there”
Yuki Tsunoda after scoring points in his debut race has struggled to match Gasly’s performance. The Japanese driver has also complained and been irate on team radio. The rookie driver has a lot to learn in Formula 1 to harness his talent.
Tsunoda after a disappointing qualification said: “It’s frustrating for me, the performance in the car is definitely there and I think we should easily be making it through to Q2, but I just couldn’t find the grip today.
“Pierre and I have very different feedback about the car, even when we have the same set-up, so I need to understand whether this is due to the characteristics of it or our different driving styles and then I can look closer at the data with my engineers. I think if I find this reason then I can really start to harness the full potential of the car.”
