Pierre Gasly says Alpine has got him excited to drive the car again after strong end, as Oliver Oakes has praise for the Frenchman’s tenacity.
At the start of the 2024 F1 season, neither Gasly nor Esteban Ocon would have wanted to drive the Alpine car. They were far down the order and didn’t look to challenge the midfield teams. But as the season progressed, they started to pick up pace and scored points too.
It was such that it made Gasly excited to drive the car again. The Frenchman was happy with the turnaround where he could see the results coming to them after work behind the scenes. “I am most happy about the fact that we seem to have a very good correlation between what we find at the factory and the track performance,” he said.
“Every time we found stuff translated into more performance or really shows what the work we do with our wind tunnel CFD, everything the guys are doing can be trusted. And I think in terms of confidence as a team, there’s going to be a massive boost over the winter. Last few races, fifth in Qatar, I was third in qualifying in Vegas, seventh, best of the midfield pretty much everywhere.
“I told them they got me excited again to drive the car and I’m definitely more excited for next season,” summed up Gasly, who received praise from team boss Oakes too for his fighting spirit. He notes how comfortable he is driving the car which has helped him to get results they needed.
“Yeah I don’t know, we need to ask him don’t we? I think though, and again I’ve not been in this job long enough to comment completely, but I think you can just see with him he feels really happy with the car, he’s obviously comfortable in the team environment,” said Oakes.
“And I think there’s obviously a lot to be said for the chemistry there of the car balance suiting him and you always see it during those high pressure stints really, he seems to be able to manage things well. And that’s not just keeping people behind, it’s actually with pace as well, and I’ve sort of seen that a few weekends now, when you have got some pace in the car it gives you options to execute weekends well as well.”
Here’s Jack Doohan identifying 2025 learning parts
Here’s Pierre Gasly seeing positive change in April-May itself
Here’s Oliver Oakes on Esteban Ocon
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