Pierre Gasly qualified in ninth position for the Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda team at the 2021 Portuguese Grand Prix. Yuki Tsunoda qualified in a poor fourteenth position in tricky and windy conditions at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve circuit.
The AlphaTauri team has struggled this weekend with the windy conditions at this circuit. Gasly has consistently finished in the top ten positions in qualifying in the last five races. The Frenchman had to be content with ninth position at the third race of the season.
Gasly was satisfied with the step forward made with the balance of the car after the practice sessions and said: “I’m very satisfied with my Qualifying performance today, we seem to find this track more difficult than the last few, so to make it through to Q3 again was positive. We knew coming to Portugal that the characteristics of this circuit would be trickier for us and I think it’s been obvious since we arrived that we’ve struggled slightly with the different conditions, particularly the wind.
“The team have worked hard since FP1 to change the balance of the car but we’re not completely happy with it yet, so we’ll need to work more tonight to try to understand this more. Whilst I’m not completely comfortable in the car yet, I’m happy we made it through to the final Qualifying session, as it seems that our midfield competitors have made some steps forward this weekend, and I think we’re in a position to take some more points tomorrow.”
Yuki Tsunoda: “It was a tricky Qualifying session today and I’m really disappointed”
Yuki Tsunoda has struggled in qualification and the rookie driver is yet to make it to the final session of qualification of a race. The Japanese driver is driving for the first time at this circuit in slippery and windy conditions.
Tsunoda was disappointed with his fourteenth position and said: “This is my first time driving here and by the end of FP2 I think I’d adapted well to the circuit, so I felt really prepared ahead of Qualifying this afternoon. For me, the lap was good but the tyre just wasn’t there – I had no grip at all with the Softs and it almost felt like I was driving with the hard tyre until the final sector.
“It was a tricky Qualifying session today and I’m really disappointed, but I’ll analyse the data tonight with my engineers and see where I can improve. Tomorrow, hopefully my race pace will be better, and I will try my best to make my way up the grid.”
