Pierre Gasly thinks the planned upgrades at AlphaTauri cannot come soon enough, after the team had arguably their worst race of the season so far in Austria.
Gasly had a torrid time on a personal level overall, receiving two separate five-second penalties during the Austrian Grand Prix after being found to have caused a collision with Sebastian Vettel, and being penalised for over-running track limits on too many occasions.
The Frenchman said he and AlphaTauri team-mate Yuki Tsunoda, who agreed that it was the team’s “most difficult weekend” of 2022, had the slowest car in the field in race conditions on Sunday – something which he is keen to rectify once the AT03 receives its new parts in the coming races.
“Yeah, I think we can just forget everything about yesterday and today because we’re dead slow,” Gasly said to Formula1.com after the race.
“[We are] probably the slowest car on track at the moment and [it is] just a big shame to see we’re fighting for the last positions, so I think we need a big reset and clearly need these new upgrades on the car as fast as possible.
that’s it for us today, tough race @PierreGASLY P15@yukitsunoda07 P16 pic.twitter.com/FvGVOzTTpn
— Scuderia AlphaTauri (@AlphaTauriF1) July 10, 2022
“I think we haven’t had any upgrades on the car for quite a long time now and, yeah, we start to feel it.
“So yeah, it’s clearly not enjoyable, and I really, really hope we can get these new parts as fast as possible.”
Gasly and Vettel went side-by-side down the hill into Turn 4 at the Red Bull Ring while jostling for position, with the four-time World Champion looking to go around the outside of the AlphaTauri driver.
But Gasly tagged Vettel’s tyre and sent him spinning into the gravel, in a similar incident to the one which earned George Russell a penalty for colliding with Sergio Perez.
And with the obvious disappointment that comes with a tough weekend like he experienced, Gasly called on AlphaTauri to start again as they prepare for the French Grand Prix in a fortnight.
“I haven’t seen the footage yet, but I obviously received a penalty in the race, so I guess I’m the one to blame for the incident with Sebastian,” he said.
“I tried to fight as hard as I could, it’s always tricky in that corner and unfortunately he spun. We need a big reset, we’ve got a week and a half to try and understand why we were slow and to understand what we can do to improve in the upcoming races.”
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