Gasly: P7 with upgraded Alpine “a fantastic surprise”

Gasly even surprised himself by earning P7 in Austin

Alpine Formula 1 driver Pierre Gasly admits that his charge to seventh on the grid for the US GP was “a fantastic surprise.”

He will actually start from P6 after George Russell was obliged to start from the pitlane.

Gasly has a package of updates on his A524 this weekend, while Esteban Ocon still has the earlier version.

He was fifth in Q1 and eighth in Q2 before securing seventh in the final session, which was curtailed by a yellow flag for George Russell’s crash.

Alpine has failed to score a point in the past four races.

“It’s a fantastic surprise,” he said when asked about the session by this writer. “I’m very happy because we made quite a lot of changes after the sprint, and on a sprint weekend, it’s not easy, because you don’t have much time to actually figure it out, especially when you’ve got a new package and new parts on the car.

“You don’t have much time to understand or try things, and we made quite a few changes setup wise, and the car was just in a much better place. So a lot more potential, more drivable, more controllable.

“It was reacting well to my driving, and I was just very pleased. A lot more enjoyable, and I managed to put some very strong laps, Q1, Q2, Q3, so very happy for the guys to see the parts have some good potential.”

Gasly stressed that his consistent pace through qualifying was encouraging.

“Clearly, today we were in the mix, and every single lap I was putting out there put us in a decent position,” he said. “So it wasn’t only one lap. That’s what I’m most pleased about. I think now we still need to figure out.

“We obviously have some ideas. I know what we’ve changed on the car, and the effect was, let’s say, quite important for what we did. And I’m sure it will help the guys to to unlock even more potential.”

He added: “To be fair, everything we are doing, the most important thing for me is really to figure out and understand as much as possible from this package for next year, from this season.

“We’ve done so much races, we’re not really fighting for any important position in the driver on the team championship. So for me, it’s anything we can take that allow us to be fighting for points consistently next year is definitely positive. And that’s what the guys gave me today.

“So also very pleased to see the correlation. Whatever they’re seeing, they’re coming with a new package, so not always guaranteed that it delivers. And there is definitely some, some good potential.”

Gasly concedes that in the Austin race his fight will be with the cars behind him on the grid.

“I think at the moment, looking at the last few races, we were fighting to get out of Q1,” he said. “Now we made it to Q3, I think that’s my best qualifying of the year. So I think before looking at the top four, we’ll look at our battle.

“I think Alonso, we’ll be able to fight him. The Haas look very strong all weekend. So I think they’ll be the ones which are going to be slightly more tricky to keep behind. But yeah, I’m sure we’ll be.”