Gasly: AlphaTauri has the “right tools” to recover F1 form

After a strong 2021 the Faenza outfit has demonstrated somewhat erratic form this season, often slipping to the bottom of the midfield pack.

However, Gasly is reluctant to blame a lack of resources relative to its immediate rivals, and insists the team has a strong core of people who can address the current issues.

"Compared to big teams like Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull, we know what they built over the last 10 years, facilities, people, resources, they are more efficient,” he said.

“But at the same time I do think we have very, very good people and also the right tools to be competitive.

“So to be honest with you, I don't fully have the answer why we seem to struggle more than other teams in the midfield, because I don't think we are missing something in the core of the team.

“So that's why I think it needs a bit of a step back and look at the whole situation, the bigger picture, what we are doing aero-wise, which direction we took, how we decided to use the budget cap, because I know since the start of the year, we are already quite on the edge, like early on in the season.

“Is that the main reason? I don't fully know. But yeah, we'll keep pushing and hopefully find some more bigger development items over the next few weeks.”

Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri AT03

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Gasly is hopeful that he and the team can bounce back strongly after the summer break.

“I must say I quite like the second part of the year, all these flyaways and interesting tracks coming up.

“I think on our side, it's actually good that there is a summer break, and good that we can use this time, first to switch off, but to really get together and try to understand everything that is happening on our package.

“Because I think we started the year closer to the top of the midfield, even though we were not right there, but with better sense of performance. And others just seem to have created a bigger gap, and we haven't been able to follow that.

“We'll work together. I know what we can achieve with the team. I know we have really good people, and now it's about finding solutions to really put this knowledge and skills into lap time on the track.”

Gasly insisted that the key is to keep making progress with successful update packages.

“We knew at the start of the season that this year is a race of development, new regulations, new cars, people are just going to develop their car throughout the year.

“It doesn't really matter how you start, what's important is just to have like an upward curve through the year.

“And I think we started in a decent place, got slowed down a bit with all the issues we had with porpoising, etcetera.

“Now two tenths in the midfield go from P8 to P16. So we just need to make sure we maximise the full potential of what we've got for the rest of the year.”