Pierre Gasly was unable to complete the second day of Formula 1 preseason because a failure in his Alpine forced him to stop driving with two hours of activity remaining and prevented him from returning to the track.However, the French runner explained the reasons for this action and brought peace of mind to the fans.
“Overall, it has been a good day, in which we have completed close to 100 laps, so I am quite satisfied with that and with the direction we are starting to take,” he reflected in statements released by the Enstone-based team.
When he had added 97 laps and had set his best time with 1:36.723, the A526 showed shortcomings, just as Franco Colapinto did in the first shift on Wednesday. Although Gasly did not manage to reactivate his work plan, he assured that the measure was a precaution.
“Our session was interrupted this afternoon after we saw something in the data that we didn’t like, so we took some precautions and stopped the car. We missed a few laps this afternoon, but it’s definitely better to be more cautious than usual at this stage of the season with a new car, as tomorrow and next week we have a lot more to do here in pre-season testing in Bahrain,” he clarified.
“Still, we have completed a lot of laps and we are learning a lot every time we go out on the track, especially with some new systems and new ways of working. There are still many things to improve, many answers to find and many analyzes to complete as a team,” he said.
The Frenchman had added 49 laps (1:36.765) during Wednesday afternoon when he replaced the Argentine, so he closed his first week of preseason this Thursday with 790 kilometers (143 laps).”In general, at scamse, we do not focus on absolute performance, since there are still many aspects to improve. My feeling in the car improves every day, we have taken a good step forward since Barcelona and I am looking forward to getting back in the car next week,” he clarified.
Alpine was not the only team with problems this Thursday, since Mercedes and RedBull Racing presented problems at the start of the day that left Kimi Antonelli and Isack Hadjar almost without turning, respectively.However, both teams were able to overcome the setbacks to take to the track normally in the second turn.
The team led by Flavio Briatore had seen Colapinto’s work cut short at the start on Wednesday due to the car’s failures.”We had some problems with the car in the morning and, yes, I didn’t do many laps. It’s part of the tests and the things typical of new cars, so we are all learning together. Hopefully we can learn from that and simply prevent it from happening again,” Colapinto had expressed to Motorsport after what happened.”My morning has not been smooth and some problems have shortened a large part of the program we had planned. These types of things happen in training, especially with a new car, and it is important that we learn from them and provide solutions,” added the Argentine in the Alpine press release.
Steve Nielsen, CEO of Alpine, had acknowledged these team failures during Franco’s stint: “We had some problems on the first day of pre-season testing here in Bahrain. Several problems with the car forced us to stop more than once during the morning session to carry out some repairs. As expected with a completely new car, there will always be some problems and it is important that we solve them quickly and take measures to prevent them from recurring. Sometimes,That is something inherent to testing, and it is important to see a positive reaction from the entire team, including the drivers, when it comes to managing some of those setbacks.”
The first week of preseason in Bahrain will close this Friday (from 4 a.m. to 1 p.m. from Argentina) with the appearance of Franco Colapinto in the full day.Elaccionar will restart from Wednesday, February 18 to Friday, February 20 with a similar work scheme in Bahrain, as a prelude to the grand debut at the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday, March 8.
