Pierre Gasly has said AlphaTauri “don’t need to find much” before they are ready to fight their rivals after a tough start to the season.
Three races down and Gasly and his team-mate Yuki Tsunoda have a combined 10 points having suffered from similar reliability issues as sister team Red Bull.
These reliability issues mean the team find themselves in eighth with only Williams and Aston Martin behind them. Not only that but they already have more than half as many points as Alpine and McLaren, who the AlphaTarui bosses would have been targeting before the start of the season.
Gasly himself DNFed in the opening race in Bahrain but has since secured back-to-back point finishes and is confident the team is not far off its rivals.
“We know we still have work to do, we must bring more performance to the package and that’s the plan for Imola this week,” Gasly said.
Points today. Aussies, I’m a big fan of your energy!!?? pic.twitter.com/vHzqhyXJCq
— PIERRE GASLY ?? (@PierreGASLY) April 10, 2022
“Then, looking at the other teams [in Australia], we saw that McLaren and Alpine were very quick so that with the three top teams out in front, we found ourselves 11th in Qualifying.
“It’s very close in the midfield, but we don’t need to find much performance to be able to improve.”
The Frenchman’s next task is navigating a circuit he has had mixed fortune at, Imola. In the team’s home race, Gasly was forced to retire in 2020 due to a coolant leak but returned the next year to finish in seventh.
On the return to Imola, Gasly said he was “always happy to drive there” and it has “a very special atmosphere.”
“It would be nice if we can make a step forward in Imola,” he said.
“It’s a track I really like, to start with because it’s very close to the factory, so everyone wants to do really well as we have more support from the crowd than usual, and it has a very special atmosphere.
“Apart from that, I also find the track technically very interesting with a lot of quite unique corners, some very fast ones, some atypical ones.
“I’m always happy to drive there, I’ve had some good Qualifying performances, particularly in 2020, when I was fourth on the grid and it would be nice if we could get our best result of the season so far this Sunday.
Source: Read Full Article