Pierre Gasly was feeling positive after Friday’s running at the Circuit Paul Ricard as Scuderia AlphaTauri brought some significant updates to is AT-03, with the Frenchman already feeling like they have brought an improvement in performance to the team.
The team have not had a great run of results of late and have slipped down the pecking order – they sit eighth in the Constructors’ Championship at the halfway point of the season – but Gasly showed a good turn of speed in practice for his home event on Friday.
Gasly ended fifth fastest in the morning session and seventh in the afternoon, and he was encouraged by the updates that are giving him positive signs heading into the rest of the weekend.
“Clearly, in terms of performance, we were back in the Top 10 with fifth this morning and seventh this afternoon,” said Gasly. “The feeling in the way the car behaved showed a lot of positive signs with the new parts we brought this weekend.
“It is great to have this package for my home race and to see all the people around the track. Now we need to work to understand what we tested today and go through all the data to be able to put it together for Quali tomorrow.
“The way the front reacts is sharper and more reactive, especially in these longer corners where we used to wash out and overheat the tyres badly. The tyres are still overheating, which we will have to work on for the race, but it should be a fun one.”
“We had a good comparison to Pierre this morning” – Yuki Tsunoda
Team-mate Yuki Tsunoda did not run the new updates in the opening session and was only eighteenth fastest, but the second session saw him join Gasly with the upgrades.
The Japanese racer said it was good to get a comparison with Gasly whilst running the older components, and he said there was a clear difference with the new parts when he got out on track with them.
Tsunoda has hopes that the updates can help the team move up the grid and fight for a position within Q3 during Saturday’s Qualifying session in France.
“We had a good comparison to Pierre this morning, which gives us enough data for tomorrow,” said Tsunoda. “There was a clear difference with the new package this afternoon straight away from the first push lap, so I’m happy about that.
“It will be challenging, but based on the performance we had today, we can be positive. There are things we still need to adjust, but hopefully we can finetune them in FP3 to be able to make it into Q3 in Qualifying.
“I didn’t feel crazy degradation, so that’s positive, but the race will be hotter so we will have to see.”
