Pierre Gasly’s ninth place finish at the Belgian Grand Prix finally snapped Scuderia AlphaTauri’s points drought, which had dated back to the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in early June.
A late change to Yuki Tsunoda’s power unit forced the Japanese driver to start his race from the pit-lane and he was soon joined by his teammate, as Gasly’s electrical system on his ATO3 car failed on the grid, denying the Frenchmen of the chance to start the race from eighth position.
On the electrical system fault, Team Principal Franz Tost stated the team would need to examine what exactly went wrong on Gasly’s electrical system to prevent the issue ever happening again.
“Pierre drove a great race. Whilst on the starting grid, in his P8 spot, the electrical system stopped working so we had to bring his car back to the garage, where we were then able to start the PU to be able to begin the race from the pitlane. We must go away and investigate why it worked again once we returned to the garage.”
With the drama of the pre-race electrical system failure behind him, Gasly got to work on what turned out to be an impressive one hundredth race in his Formula One career for the twenty-six-year-old driver. An aggressive strategy which included pitting early onto the hard tyres, before a twenty-two-lap stint on the mediums to end the race saw Gasly rewarded with a ninth-place finish.
Tost was keen to heap the praise onto Gasly after such an impressive drive from the pit-lane to the points.
“Of course, it was then a difficult race for Pierre, but he drove very well. He struggled with a lack of grip at the beginning of the race but during his later stint on the Mediums, he did a great job, and managed to make up multiple positions.”
Yuki Tsunoda was unable to match his teammates impressive drive around the Spa-Francorchamps Circuit. A combination of an alternate strategy and a period stuck in a DRS train, saw Tsunoda unable to secure a points finish.
Despite his thirteenth-place finish, Tost was also keen to praise Tsunoda for what he called ‘a really strong race’ from the young Japanese driver.
“Yuki also started from the pitlane today with a different strategy, with him starting on the hard tyres, he was able to do an extended stint on these, not coming in until lap 18 for the new tyre. I must say, Yuki also drove a really strong race and showed a good performance. He got stuck for some time behind Zhou but was able to overtake him on the last lap and finished in thirteenth.”
Franz Tost ended by looking towards Zandvoort next weekend, where he hopes the team will be able to build on what has proven to be a strong weekend at the Belgian Grand Prix.
“From our side, we managed to score some points today, which is positive, as we’ve not been able to do this at the last few races. We hope now in the Netherlands to have a race weekend without any technical problems or PU changes so we can return to the performance that we had at the start of the season.”
Jody Egginton: “To be back to scoring points is very welcome, but we are still making it harder than it needs to be”
Technical Director of Scuderia AlphaTauri, Jody Egginton, claimed that despite the success of Pierre Gasly’s points finish at the Belgian Grand Prix, the team is making race weekend’s harder than they need to be.
The Italian team have struggled to gain any momentum throughout the season and after finding themselves in the battle of the midfield in previous seasons, the team find themselves in the unfamiliar position of eighth in the constructors standings with just a five-point lead over Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team.
Without Pierre Gasly’s electrical failure in the build-up to the race, Gasly could have been even better placed with AlphaTauri’s aggressive strategy in place to come home with an even better finish from today’s race.
Like his team boss, Egginton was keen to praise both Tsunoda and Gasly for executing strong races out on track and stated that the team’s long awaited return to the points was ‘very welcome’.
“Today’s race has been quite eventful. Pierre’s car had an issue on the grid, meaning it had to be returned to the garage and start from the pitlane alongside Yuki, who was already committed to a pitlane start. Once the race was underway, both drivers got down to the task of trying to move forward. Yuki put in some very solid stints to move towards the points, but ultimately was bottled up in the train of cars behind Albon and was not able to quite get into the points, which is disappointing as Yuki ran a good race here in Spa.
With Pierre the gamble to run a shorter middle stint, and extending the last, was risky as it required a further step of tyre management, but it worked. This allowed him to escape the train behind and come home in a very solid ninth place. To be back to scoring points is very welcome, but we are still making it harder than it needs to be, so there is still plenty of topics to focus on ahead of next week’s race.”
