We meet Pierre Gasly during the charity event “Une Course pour la Vie” at Paris Kart Indoor where he accepted to answer our questions.
Nina Rochette: You are here at Wissous for the event « Une Course pour la vie » following Grégory Bakian’s initiative for the Grégory Lemarchal association, was it important for you to be here today?
Pierre Gasly: Yes, I think it is important to show our support for this association and to show that even what happened to Grégory, we are still here to fight this disease and we try to gather as many people as possible to try to save lives in the future, that is the most important.
NR: Let’s talk about your career, you are about to start your second complete season in GP2 Series with Prema Powerteam, how do you feel ahead of this year with a new team in the category?
PG: It is surely new to the category but they have experienced people. They recruited a lot of engineers and mechanics who come from GP2, so the team might be new to the category but the people inside are not therefore we can say they have some experience. We will obviously fight for the title this year, it is my second complete season so I will give it all and it is really important to win this year if I want to be in Formula 1 next year.
NR: Prema’s important pedigree, especially in Formula 3, has helped you making your choice I guess.
PG: It’s a team who always won no matter the championship they entered, it is a very professional and hardworking team. They did not win by magic and even with the several days I spent at the factory I could see what matters to them is victory and we have the same target this season.
NR: GP2 Series will come back in Asia this year with a round at Sepang, are you excited about racing there?
PG: Of course! It’s a track I have never been to at the moment and for a driver anything new is exciting so I am really looking forward to race there with the awesome track and it will be something completely new for me this year.
NR: Let’s talk about Formula 1, you are Red Bull and Toro Rosso’s reserve driver and you are the main driver of the Red Bull junior program, I know it is a bit too early to talk about 2017 but is the perspective of getting a Formula one seat motivates you to give better results in GP2?
PG: At the moment I only focus on my GP2 season because this is where the difference will be at the end of the season. For the moment it is too early to say what the end of the season will be like, it will mostly depend of my results this year and that’s why I am motivated at 200% to give the best of me, get the best results possible and prove Red Bull I am ready to go to F1 so all my concentration is focused on my GP2 year.
NR: Do you have a testing program scheduled with Red Bull or Toro Rosso?
PG: I hope I will have some testing days as I had last year but at the moment it is slightly too soon to talk about this and be sure about what I am going to do.