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Gasly and engineer take a different approach after double grid penalty
- GPblog.com
Pierre Gasly set an excellent qualifying session in Barcelona by driving the fourth fastest time. Unfortunately for the Frenchman, he obstructed two drivers in qualifying, resulting in two three-spot grid penalties. Gasly and his engineer will take a different approach in Canada to ensure a repeat is avoided.
"Yes, obviously," Gasly said at the press conference. "I think it had a very bad impact, obviously on our weekend from qualifying first to start P10 and drop to P14 on lap one. So it was definitely a pretty terrible start. But yeah, there are always things we can do better. There were small mistakes which were done in quali, which we reviewed and will improve in terms of procedure and communication. And yeah, it was a harsh penalty. Fortunately, there is a regulation which is applied most of the time, and then we paid a pretty big price."
In Spain, Gasly finished tenth and thus scored a point. In Canada, the aim is to get several more. Alpine, after a poor start to the season with few points, is getting into better shape. Meanwhile, the team stands at 40 points after seven Grands Prix.
Gasly happy with form Alpine
"I think the last three events have been pretty strong in terms of evolutions and progress. We've scored points with both cars on these last three events. Miami was a step forward. Monaco, there was obviously a podium. Barcelona, we showed strong pace in quali. So there is definitely positives."
In the races, there are still some areas for improvement, Gasly said. "There are small details we need to work on to really make a step on Sundays. But overall, I think we have decent potential in our package and I'm confident we can get a strong result again this weekend."