Pierre Gasly says there is no need for him to be “stressful” over his subdued start to 2019, insisting Red Bull “knows exactly what’s happening”.
Gasly joined Red Bull as a replacement for Renault-bound Daniel Ricciardo but has so far trailed team-mate Max Verstappen across all six qualifying sessions and respective races.
Gasly has previously spoken about trying to adapt his naturally aggressive driving style to a car that is prone to suffering from mid-corner instability, believing he is constantly making progress.
Speaking in Monaco, Gasly said: “Since the beginning of the season I’ve stated there’s lots of things that didn’t come my way in the weekend and inside the team we know exactly what’s happening.
“Maybe on the outside looking at the result is the only thing you can see but on the inside we have a lot more information so they [Red Bull management] know things didn’t really come my way, we had a couple of issues there.
“I think they’re really supportive, trying to give me the best environment I need to perform and keep developing myself.
“If you look at the result of Fernando [Alonso] during qualifying [for the Indianapolis 500] it didn’t go well but there are reasons. I think most of the people don’t know [the reality].
“Okay we might hear a few things but exactly what’s happened we don’t really know, and that’s what I’m saying.
“There’s a couple of things that explains sometimes the lack of performance we have, that we know inside the team, and there’s no need to really get stressed or worried.
“I think I need to stay focused on my job and extracting the best I can with the package I have and this is what I stay focused on at the moment.
“There’s surely things I need to improve and adapt to this package but that’s why I’m confident things are going better and better and we’ll be able to extract even more performance in the coming races.”
Gasly accepted that “everything is taking a bit of time” but was keen to emphasise that his rate of progress, upon joining a new team, was normal.
“For sure coming into a new team you want everything to be perfect from day one,” he said.
“But objectively it’s not possible and you’ve got to be patient and try and focus at improving every single detail to get the maximum out of it.
“For sure I would like the evolution to be faster than the rate we have now, but by staying focused on the work I need to do, [I need to] keep pushing the team and finding the direction with my engineer, who is also starting in Formula 1 now.
“Everything is taking a bit of time but we’re going in the right direction, progressing, and hopefully we’ll keep going like this and get even better results in the coming races.”
—
Thanks to @SportPesa_UK you could be in with the chance to win some exclusive upcoming SportPesa Racing Point experiences. To find out more and be in the chance of winning head to: https://www.sportpesa.uk/promotions-sports/fan-experience/
—
