I never doubted Gasly but he’s surprised others – Tost

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In the round-up: AlphaTauri team principal Franz Tost says he was always convinced by the talent of Pierre Gasly, whose continuation at the team was announced yesterday.

In brief

Gasly “surprises others” – Tost

Gasly returned to AlphaTauri – previously known as Toro Rosso – in mid-2019 after an unsuccessful half-season at Red Bull. Since then he has scored podiums and a victory, at Monza last year. Tost believes he deserves to be regarded among F1’s top talents.

“I was always convinced about him,” he said. “I think he surprises some other people. And for me, Pierre belongs currently to the best drivers in Formula 1.”

In last weekend’s race Gasly led the midfield home, finishing fourth behind Max Verstappen and the Mercedes drivers, in what Tost described as a “fantastic race”.

“He had everything 100 percent under control because it was not so easy. He had to do a lot of tyre management and it was one of the most measured races from Pierre he showed so far. I really can only say well done, congratulations, because this was a fantastic performance he showed.

“We must not forget we called him in on lap 27 because left tyres gave a little bit up and then he had to overtake Alonso, this was a very, very good manoeuvre, and then he managed everything in a really very professional and measured way to bring the fourth place home.”

Perez hoping second sprint qualifying event goes better

Sergio Perez is aiming for a better performance in this weekend’s sprint qualifying race than he did at Silverstone, where he crashed and had to start the grand prix from the back.

“I’m hoping for a better and more straightforward weekend with the sprint pace format,” said the Red Bull driver. “The last race we tried it was at Silverstone and I made a mistake which ruined our weekend. It didn’t go to plan so I am looking forward to starting a fresh and seeing how this one plays out.”

New GB4 championship to launch next year

A new entry-level single-seater championship to be called GB4 will be launched in Britain next year by Jonathan Palmer’s MotorSport Vision company. A total of 21 races will be held will be held across seven events and cars are expected to cost £30,000 each. The champion will receive a £50,000 fund towards a drive in GB3, the series known until recently and British Formula 3.

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Comment of the day

Leroy foresees fireworks at Mercedes next year:

Mercedes are going to be so much fun to watch next season. They will either be dominant if they get the aero right and Lewis and George push each other and the team to greater heights, or they could implode if they don’t get the aero right and Lewis and George start clashing with each other.

If they do clash, it’ll be interesting to see how the British public reacts. Which driver will they side with? What mental games will be played out between them? Will Toto have to institute team orders? Personally, I think the Rosberg/Hamilton clashes are going to be nothing compared to the Hamilton/Russell clashes once George gets settled in with the team.
Leroy (@G-funk)

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Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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18 comments on “I never doubted Gasly but he’s surprised others – Tost”

  1. Re COTD: I don’t believe any teammate clash between drivers from the same country at non dominant team could ever beat the tense between drivers form different country that both had a chance to be the world champion. But I do hope there be some clashes between George and Lewis whether Merc would be dominant or not.

    1. Hamilton is now in a situation where Alonso was in 2007. Hamilton came then as a young promising talent and overtook (then defeding double world champion) Alonso on the outside at Albert Park after the start in his first ever racing lap. We all know how that went down. Russell is now the “07 Hamilton” against 2022 Hamilton.

      1. @qeki not really. Russell in 2022 will be in his fourth season of F1 with ~60 races experience. That’s a bit different to being a complete rookie pitched against a multiple world champion. Also, Lewis in 2022 will be 37 years old. Alonso in 2007 was 26. Not quite the same comparison.

  2. The year is 2197. The desert nation of Britain is ravaged by rising sea levels. The few survivors fight among themselves for the dwindling supply of chlorinated grits. Jonathan Palmer announces plans for another one-make single-seater series.

    1. It’s fine. In 2197 we have wipeout racing. Though i prefered the 2097 season.

  3. I’m not sure having a sprint race at Monza is a good venue for it. Wouldn’t it be better to have a normal quali on this track since passing is not the best compared other tracks?

    If the risk of trying to pass in the sprint is high risk, why would they do it and risk losing out getting more points in the main race?

    Drivers could be stuck in front of a slower car (for whatever reason) and basically cause a parade which would make the sprint race grid similar to the Main race grid; how is that better than having a standard quali?

    I’m all about seeing more races over the weekend but just like them to make more sense. Also very much looking forward to watching the rarely seen F2 racing this weekend.

    1. @redpill perhaps it is due to the slipstream farce that has occurred over the last 2 years they decided on Monza.

      1. @millionus Not really last year, only in late-Q1 to a small extent.

    2. @redpill What do you mean exactly? Monza is overtaking-friendly on paper, definitely closer to the top than the bottom featuring Monaco, Singapore, Montmelo, Hungaroring, etc.

      1. @jerejj

        Jere I had a brain fart and was thinking of Mugello Circuit of last year, not Monza. I wish I could delete my post because thankfully it’s not as valid.

        PS> Agree about Montmelo especially with the new turn 10

  4. From personal experience, my cousin in the United States who claimed “F1 is dead” 15 years ago and never watched a single race since, phoned me the other day to speak about the current season and how F1 was so interesting. At the end of the call he revealed that he only got back into it because of Netflix. How did the call end? With an invitation to Miami next year to watch the race (all expenses paid). Thank you Netflix!

  5. Seems to me what did Gasly in at Red Bull was the way he handled himself at the team. It’s obvious from bits of comments of various members of the team, that they in general didn’t really enjoy working together with Gasly and that’s why he’s not getting promoted again.

    I don’t really see a reason to expect a better performance from Gasly as second time around compared to Perez or Albon at any rate.

    I hope he drives for the French team at some point, for his sake, but until then AlphaTauri seems like a good place to be for him. Quick enough to be noticed, obviously the team is suited for him, and coming in 4th every now and again and maybe picking up a podium with some luck is not a bad place to be compared to several of the alternatives at the back end of the grid.

  6. “Sergio Perez is aiming for a better performance in this weekend’s sprint qualifying race than he did at Silverstone, where he crashed and had to start the grand prix from the back.”

    There also was an article mentioning a time where aiming to recover from a bad weekend in Austria, and he then had that awful Silverstone weekend. Then now he’s had Spa where he crashed on the way to the grid, then the latest race where he didn’t make it out of Q1, locked up ruining his strategy and barely finished in the points. Most times we see articles mentioning that he’s going to restart, refresh himself or bounce back, it goes badly. It quite possibly will again.

    Also, it isn’t a sprint qualifying race, It’s just sprint qualifying ;)

    1. Feels a bit like “Bottas 2.0” right @thegianthogweed

    2. @thegianthogweed I agree, I don’t think it’s possible for Perez to compete with Verstappen. Gasly failed to come close, Albon failed. I think Perez needs to start aiming for P4 (dare we say P3), that’s the best he can do in that car and I think it’s a tall order.

      His expected result is P4 given the fact that he’s finished 4th in 3 races and only twice above that. His average excluding the elimination at Hungary is 7.16 so on average he brings 6 points per race.

      The only good news for Checo is that this season is the worst season for Bottas who has only scored 55% so far of Lewis’ points and it’s fair to say that Lewis hasn’t maximized his points this season.

      If Checo can average P4 over the course of the remaining 8-9 races, it’d be unbelievable but to be honest with you that’d be like asking a driver to score 475 points over a 21 race season. Checo’s a fighter so he’ll at least try to stick with a P7 and perhaps find a way to be P4 in the WDC. The dream situation is if he outscores Bottas bringing a positive contribution in the championship.

      These are difficult times for Checo but his performance may decide the WCC and it might be more difficult for him than Max so he needs Red Bull’s full support. I think the contract extension was meant to do that. I think Horner and Marko know that the WCC championship is in Perez’s and Bottas’ hands.

  7. the Russell-Hamilton team will survive only 1 year, 2 at best, regardless of results and competitiveness of the car, mark my words

  8. I do wonder how many of those who were drawn to F1 recently thanks to the Netflix show will stick around long term once they realise that the F1 that is portrayed in the Netflix show isn’t how F1 actually is in reality.

    And I say that as I know a couple people who watched the Netflix show & then started watching F1 as a result only for all of them to have subsequently fallen off because it wasn’t what they expected based on how it was presented in the show.

    One of them said that they expected a lot more big drama & were disappointed that so much in F1 plays out more slowly than is portrayed in the show.

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