Gasly knows how to qualify better: 'Stay away from Sainz'

Alpine driver Pierre Gasly discusses the investments recently made in his team during Thursday's press conference and talks about the French racing stable's chances in Austria.

It was announced earlier this week that a group of three different investment parties are investing 200 million euros in the French F1 team. They are Otro Capital, RedBird Capital Partners and Maximum Efforts (all three are part of 'the Invester Group'). Together, they are buying 24% of the shares within the team. The investments are being made to support Alpine in its growth process and sporting ambitions.

Several celebrities are involved in the investment: for instance, Maximum Efforts is led by actor Ryan Reynolds. His party also includes Michael B. Jordan and co-chairman of Wrexham AFC football club Rob McElhenney. Driver Pierre Gasly welcomes the investment:"It means I think is just the vision of the team, of Alpine, of the Renault group, of the Formula 1 team to expand, to improve for the future in Formula 1." The one-time race winner also thinks their knowledge will play a role in the team's development. "They got really good expertise in also other sports, NFL, NHL, in football, in many other disciplines that we'll be trying to use as much as we can to improve our strength," he said. Gasly hopes to meet Ryan Reynolds soon. "I'm personally a fan of him and his work. I think he's definitely one of my favourite actors!"

Gasly also hopes to see improvement soon on the track, especially on Saturday the Frenchman has been less successful. In Barcelona, he was put back several places for getting in the way of Carlos Sainz and in Canada, it was the same Ferrari driver who now kept him from a good position. How the Alpine driver thinks he can solve this? "Stay away from Sainz," Gasly says, laughing. "It's always tricky," he adds. "There are some tracks which are very easy to control the traffic, some others which are way more difficult. Montreal is one of these tracks which is tricky. Austria is going to be bad." If he does not get in the way, the Alpine driver is hoping for a spot in the top-eight, he says.