Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri, Losail International Circuit, 2021

AlphaTauri’s front wing is “really weak compared to others” says Gasly after failure

2021 Qatar Grand Prix

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Pierre Gasly said AlphaTauri’s front wing appears to be more susceptible to damage than its rivals’ after it failed when he hit a kerb on his final lap in Q3.

Gasly qualified fourth for the Qatar Grand Prix but believed he was on course to better his time on the lap when his front wing shattered at the exit of turn 15. The damage punctured his front-right tyre as his car went over green-and-white kerbs

“The last lap in Q3 I was improving by one and a half tenths, so actually I think it would have put us very close to Valtteri [Bottas],” said Gasly. “I don’t know if he was improving or not, but our lap was coming really well.”

Gasly said he had “pushed a bit more” into turn 15 “but it was quite shocking inside the car, to lose the front wing and just blew the whole front right tyre, so that was it.”

The AlphaTauri drivers wasn’t sure whether he had caused the incident by him running excessively wide. “We know our front wing is really weak compared to others,” he said. “I’ve lost it in Bahrain, I’ve lost it in Monza, I’ve lost it in Sochi over the kerbs.

“It just seems to be really fragile. I need to review exactly but it didn’t seem like I went super-wide on it, but it clearly just broke suddenly.”

Despite the dramatic failure, Gasly doesn’t believe the incident did any damage to the chassis. “It was just the front wing, so it should be fine.”

He equalled his best qualifying performance of the season with fourth on the grid. “At the end of the day, we did our job, we qualified fourth, behind the two top teams,” said Gasly. “It’s been so far a really, really impressive weekend from from all the team.”

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2021 Qatar Grand Prix

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3 comments on “AlphaTauri’s front wing is “really weak compared to others” says Gasly after failure”

  1. Considering this failure & floor damages earlier on the weekend, I don’t entirely rule out a DNF caused by curbs.

  2. Tsunodas broken wing up against Stroll probably wasn’t surprising but it didn’t put up much resistance

  3. Would Alpha Tauris be further up the grid with a top driver?

    When even Yuki outqualifies the second red bull, something has to give.

    this AT space is suddenly one of the most intriguing in F1

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