Otmar Szafnauer says Pierre Gasly is 99% there with Alpine after first three races but needs a couple more to be fully aligned with the system.
Having switched to Alpine from years at AlphaTauri, Gasly is still finding his feet with the French F1 outfit. Its been three different kind of races for the Frenchman, where it started with a mighty comeback from last to points in Bahrain.
He stepped up in Saudi Arabia with points from Q3 and in Australia, Gasly was on-course for a Top 5 finish until the second re-start where he collided with Esteban Ocon to retire from a seemingly good points finish which Alpine certainly would have benefited from.
With three races done, Gasly is still not 100% aligned with Alpine as per Szafnauer which he reckons is natural. The American reckons a couple more events should help him. In fact, he feels the transition has been better than the expected levels they had.
“Pierre is 99% there, you never get 100% over three races,” he said to media. “It does not matter who it is. It will take another race or two to be at the right level. The transition in our system has been a lot quicker than expected. You get used to your system. He transitioned well.
“He gets along with the team whether it is he mechanics, the engineers, the simulator team, the time in the racing car… this is all at a higher level than my expectations which is very good. Gasly is getting there very quickly. As I said, he’s new and it takes time. He’s fast but it will take time at the margin to eke every little bit out of the car.
“And he’s still getting comfortable with us. I talked to him and he said, ‘look, give me a couple more races and there’s a couple of tenths in me.’ I think it’s just a better understanding of driver and engineering team to set the car up like he likes it,” summed up the Alpine F1 chief.
Here’s the Alpine pair on race-ending collision
