Scuderia AlphaTauri‘s French driver Pierre Gasly, fought Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team‘s oldest statesman Lewis Hamilton for fourth-place at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Unfortunately, Hamilton was much too fast for the Frenchman.
Gasly’s team decided not to change tyres when a late Virtual Safety Car, the second of the race, was implemented. Hamilton on the other hand, did pit for fresh tyres making Gasly an easy target.
Despite just missing out on fourth, Gasly was extremely pleased with fifth-place and enjoyed his battle with Hamilton.
“It’s been pretty incredible for us today. Finishing in the top five is really good, especially considering how the start of our year has played out. We’ve not had that much luck so far, so it was important to get a clean weekend, which is what we’ve achieved here in Baku.
“We made no mistakes this weekend, we showed great pace in practice, then we had the best Quali of the year yesterday and today we finished in our highest position of the season to date. We also enjoyed a nice little battle with Lewis, which was fun.
“We knew at the start of the race that it would be relentless, as we headed in with just one new set of Hards, so we were really hoping for a clean end to the race but unfortunately, we had the second Virtual Safety Car, and we knew that wouldn’t play out in our favour.
“I tried to defend against Lewis the best I could, once he pitted for new tyres, but he was much faster – I tried to nurse my tyres through the race, but they really weren’t in great shape by that point. At the end of the day, to be in a position to fight with the Mercedes means that we’re doing a really good job, so it’s great for the team to come away with lots of points today.”
AlphaTauri were pleased with Gasly’s efforts in the race, seeing as the French driver was expected to battle in the midfield alongside his fellow team-mate after their successful qualifying yesterday. Disappointingly, Yuki Tsunoda did not finish in the top ten as the team had hoped he would.
“I’m really disappointed today” – Yuki Tsunoda
Tsunoda was set for a brilliant points finish, until his rear wing suddenly failed. The Japanese driver had been having a strong race, until he was given the black and orange flag to pit.
The team quickly taped up Tsunoda’s rear-wing, with the DRS somehow split in half. This cost him precious seconds and caused him to fall behind in the race and well outside of the points.
The young Japanese driver was bitterly disappointed with the outcome of his race, after what looked set to be a promising points finish
“Until the reliability issue the race was going really well for me, we were really in control of the tyres and the pace was good, so I think we could’ve easily finished in P6 today. I wasn’t fully aware of the issue, as it wasn’t causing too much of a change to our performance, that’s why I was a bit shocked when I was called in. It’s such a shame to be coming away without points from my side of the garage, as the team have done such a great job this weekend and we’ve been strong in every session.”
