Franz Tost believes Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda had a ‘very successful’ Mexico City Grand Prix weekend, with Pierre Gasly delivering one of their best results of the season in fourth place.
Gasly was one of the stars of the weekend, with the Frenchman qualifying an excellent fifth on the grid. He was able to profit from the collision between Daniel Ricciardo and Valtteri Bottas to run fourth, and from there on he was easily able to consolidate that position until the chequered flag, much to the delight of Team Principal Tost.
“From our side, I must say that we had a very successful weekend,” said Tost. “Pierre qualified yesterday in fifth position and the strategy was clear today: he had to survive in the first corner, keep the Ferraris behind and bring home P5.
“Due to Bottas’ spin on the first lap, he was able to move up to fourth place and he defended this up to the chequered flag. We know how difficult it is here in Mexico to manage the tyres and the brakes at this altitude, and Pierre was incredible during the entire race, behaving in a very professional way.
“Pierre and the team did a fantastic job across the whole weekend and the car showed a very good performance.”
Unfortunately for Yuki Tsunoda, his Mexico City Grand Prix was over on lap one after contact with Esteban Ocon at turn two. However, Tost was pleased with the pace the Japanese racer showed throughout the weekend, and he hopes Tsunoda can keep that kind of performance up for the rest of the season.
“Yuki was a bit unfortunate today,” said Tost. “He had to start from P17 because of the Power Unit change and then in the first corner Ocon crashed into him, so he couldn’t continue the race as the car was damaged too heavily.
“He showed great pace across the weekend and I’m looking forward to seeing how he performs now for the rest of the season.”
Tost does not believe AlphaTauri will need to take any more penalties for engine changes in 2021, and he believes the team are on course to finish fifth in the Constructors’ Championship having equalled the points tally of the Alpine F1 Team in Mexico.
“We hope we will not have any more penalties to take, meaning he should be in the top 10 and regularly scoring points in the remaining races,” he added. “We will now get ready for Sao Paulo where I hope we can show a similar performance.
“We will have the Sprint Qualifying but having a fast car should definitely help.”
