Alpine’s Pierre Gasly blasted his team after a disappointing Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix that was littered with technical trouble, saying “I want us to do better.”
The Frenchman has endured a tough run of form at late, dominated by technical issues.
At Silverstone, Gasly failed to make the start with gearbox problems, in Hungary, he failed to finish and last Sunday at Spa-Francorchamps he was plagued by engine trouble and more throughout the 44-lap Belgian GP.
Gasly was less than impressed with the tools given to him as he found himself crossing the line in 14th place, which was bumped up to 13th thanks to George Russell’s disqualification.
Regardless, Gasly gave a damning assessment of his Belgian GP.
“Very not happy, very not happy,” said Gasly.
“We had an engine problem the whole afternoon, losing seven tenths down the straights every lap, engine temperature issue, steering isn’t straight the whole race, we missed the right strategy… We just do too many mistakes.
“The last three weekends have been absolutely frustrating.
“We are not on top of what we should be, basically, and I know the guys can do a lot better than that. It’s been a tough start of the year, then we scored roughly 10 points as a team.
“I want us to do a lot better than that, so I think it’s important we regroup together and we make sure the second part of the year is better.”
Gasly’s frustration was warranted given Alpine blundered out of the starting blocks as the slowest team in the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix with an overweight and underwhelming car.
Progress has been made since then with a smattering of points, but Alpine’s standing in the Constructors’ Championship, eighth, with just 11 points, is not befitting of a manufacturer team.
There’s much changed to be made with the Enstone-Viry outfit, not least Bruno Famin stepping down as Team Principal amid a plan by Alpine to ditch its own power unit in favour of becoming a Mercedes customer team.
Still, ahead of that groundbreaking decision coming to fruition, Gasly is adamant Alpine needs to turn things around in the second half of the 2024 campaign post summer shutdown.
“I think right now it’s important we sit down and we look at ourselves objectively and what we’ve got to improve, and make clear actions on that,” Gasly said.
“Very disappointed with today because there was definitely better to do.”
