Pierre Gasly expects car concepts across the Formula 1 grid will remain “unique” in 2024 despite an expectation that most will converge on Red Bull’s dominant philosophy.
Red Bull has thrashed the competition since F1 returned to ground effect machinery in 2022, winning 39 out of 44 races to clinch consecutive championship doubles.
The Milton-Keynes-based squad has capitalised on optimising the downwash sidepod solution, which several teams opted to replicate across the previous campaign.
Heading into the third year under the latest regulations, Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner has predicted that more cars will resemble the title-winning RB19.
But like Red Bull, Alpine Technical Director Matt Harman warned at the end of last season that the reigning champions won’t be usurped if its rivals strive to solely imitate.
That was reflected in the launch of the team’s 2024 car, the A524, earlier this week, with the Enstone-based squad unveiling a revised design compared to its predecessor.
When asked whether he believes the grid will close up even further in the coming season as the budget cap continues to have an impact, Gasly said: “I think it’s still too soon.
“We’ve seen last year looking at the Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull, or our car, they were all very different. You know, you will expect everyone to sort of like merge towards the same type of cars… but somehow it’s not happening.
“So I still expect cars to be definitely quite unique and still remain quite different. It will change until September and then after everyone’s going to be focusing on ’26 [and the new regulations]. So yeah, we’ll have to see where all [the] teams are in Bahrain.”
Despite Red Bull’s advantage remaining untouched in race trim, the first segment of qualifying at the final round of 2023 saw the top 18 cars covered by only six-tenths.
While Gasly believes F1 moved away from having a clear backmarker outfit last year, he contends that fluctuations in the pecking order between teams have always existed.
“I do believe we all have a very short memory, so we remember very well what happened last week, but then five years ago it’s a lot more difficult, so I’ll tend to say yes, but I’m sure if I sit down and just go through back to 2021, 2020, 2022, we always had that,” he argued. “Quite competitive, and that’s what you expect from Formula 1.
“But last year, let’s say, you didn’t really have anyone at the back of the grid, like two seconds off, like we’ve seen some years.
“So hopefully this year it can be even closer. As a driver, ideally you want most of the cars to have minimum performance differences. So you have a bit more input on the final result and hopefully that’s what we can see this year.”
