Pierre Gasly said his first day of running at Silverstone had been his “best Friday of the season” so far.
The Red Bull driver, who has often struggled to match team mate Max Verstappen’s pace this year, was the quickest of the pair in both sessions and fastest of all in the first 90 minutes of running.However Gasly said he wasn’t prepared to call his performance a ‘breakthrough’ on the strength of a single day’s running.
“We’ll wait tomorrow and Sunday to see,” said Gasly. “But for sure it’s the best Friday of the season. The changes seemed to work so we need to keep going in that direction.”
Gasly confirmed he and the team have made extensive changes to his car since the Austrian Grand Prix, where he was lapped by Verstappen.
“It was a really good day on our side,” he said. “I’m happy because we made a lot of changes since Austria and we have a good plan and things to improve on my side also with the team all weekend.
“It seemed to work. It’s only Friday, we need to confirm tomorrow, but the feeling is a lot better from today.”
He said the conditions on the track, which has recently been resurfaced, were “difficult”.
“It was not easy for everybody, we saw it was quite tricky. Let’s see how it is tomorrow but on this track with the high speed with a bit of wind it’s quite fun.”
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petebaldwin (@petebaldwin)
12th July 2019, 18:17
You’d have thought they’d have tried Max’s setup on Gasley’s car before now wouldn’t you…..
erikje
12th July 2019, 19:03
A driver has the right to choose his own setup to feel confident.
petebaldwin (@petebaldwin)
13th July 2019, 11:22
Sure but the team literally said he now has to use Verstappens’s setup and can only tweak it slightly and then instantly, the guy has his “best Friday”
Robbie (@robbie)
12th July 2019, 19:07
@petebaldwin I would think they have done that before now but different conditions, different day, perhaps pre-latest tweaks to the car/wings/diffuser, latest engine spec ie. driveability, etc etc.
I hope this is something PG can build on now, and he’s got the right perspective in that he is not hanging his hat on one practice day and saying ‘job done.’
nase
12th July 2019, 22:06
@petebaldwin
I’m just gonna say it’s all worthless, qualifying is what matters. If he can perform on the same level (relative to the others) in qualifying, his form is real (which, in turn, would beg the question why it took them so long to start doing something).
Until then, my working hypothesis is a different one. The easiest thing for his team to do after such a catastrophic weekend in Austria, which had all the news outlets speculating about when would be a good time to replace him with whom, would simply be to “give him something extra”, i.e. to let him use more powerful engine modes on his short runs to give the press something to write about.
Tomorrow afternoon will tell if there is more to it than a PR stunt.
MaddMe (@maddme)
12th July 2019, 19:43
Credit where credit is due to Gasly, he did a fine job today…
baasbas
13th July 2019, 8:42
I’d be happy if this ends his slum but I’ll reserve judgement until after the weekend. At the moment it could also be the case of over compensating in FP because of all the criticism he is faced with…
Jere (@jerejj)
12th July 2019, 20:13
I have to admit that I quite like the 007-logo on the rear wing and the sides. I wish it were kept on the car permanently, but unfortunately, this is most likely only going to be a one-off thing.
jf
12th July 2019, 20:50
I guess he found (at last) the 5th gear!