Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri, Hungaroring, 2022

Gasly: No explanation for AlphaTauri’s midfield struggles

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In the round-up: Pierre Gasly says he is unable to explain why AlphaTauri have struggled compared to their midfield rivals in recent races

In brief

No explanation for AlphaTauri’s midfield struggles, says Gasly

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Pierre Gasly says he is unable to explain why AlphaTauri have struggled compared to their midfield rivals in recent races.

AlphaTauri currently sit in eighth place in the constructors’ championship on 27 points following a scoreless streak of five races. The tally is 57 points fewer than the team had accrued after 13 races last season.

Gasly said he could not explain why the team appears to be struggling to score points compared to their rivals in the midfield.

“I don’t fully have the answer for why we seem to struggle more than than other teams in the midfield, because I don’t think we are missing something in the core of the team,” Gasly said.

“That’s why I think it needs a bit of a step back and look at the whole situation and the bigger picture, what we’re all doing, aero-wise, which direction we do, how we decided to use the budget cap because I know since the start of the year we were already quite on the edge early on in the season. Is that the main reason? I don’t fully know. We’ll keep pushing and hopefully find some more bigger development items over the next few weeks.”

Giovinazzi to decide on Formula E future after “tough” debut season

Dragon Penske Formula E driver Antonio Giovinazzi says he will ponder his future in Formula E after this weekend’s season finale following a “tough” first year in the series.

The former Alfa Romeo F1 driver has failed to score a point throughout his campaign – the only driver in the championship still scoreless. Giovinazzi’s best finish of 16th came in the Monaco EPrix, while he secured third on the grid for the second London race before retiring after 19 laps.

“It’s been, for sure, a tough season,” said Giovinazzi. “It’s been difficult.

“It’s another championship, another car. The format is so hard also for a rookie. It was an experience, for sure. As I’ve said before, Formula E was the only car I’d never driven before in my career. I’ve driven so many cars before, but Formula E was the only one. But tough, for sure.

“We struggled a lot, the team, with the car – especially in the races, it’s quite hard. So for the future, we’ll see. After Korea we’ll see what is available, what is good for me and then I’ll decide.”

Quotes: Hazel Southwell

Ex-Schumacher 1991 Benetton B191 for sale

Michael Schumacher, Benetton B191, Adelaide, Australia, 1991
A 1991 Benetton B191 has been put up for sale with car auctioneers RM Sotheby’s. The chassis number B-191-02 was originally driven by Nelson Piquet, who used it to win the 1991 Canadian Grand Prix, his last career victory.

After Michael Schumacher’s impressive debut with Jordan at Spa-Francorchamps, the future seven-time champion signed to drive with Benetton where he completed the rest of the season, scoring four points over the final five rounds of the championship.

Benetton would finish the 1991 season in fourth place in the constructors’ championship on 38.5 points.

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Comment of the day

Fernando Alonso may be losing to team mate Esteban Ocon in the drivers’ championship, but MichaelN believes Alonso’s impressive performances relative to his team mate are enlightening…

These days the cars are so complex that you probably can’t really say what influence, if any, a driver has on technical issues. As it seems, Alonso has just had the misfortune of having technical and strategic problems in races where he might otherwise have scored good points.

He still has an edge over Ocon, but to the latter’s credit, the difference isn’t big. At the same time, when Schumacher was Alonso’s age he couldn’t really keep up with Rosberg, so in some ways Ocon could perhaps be argued to still be lacking that bit of pace we see in guys of his generation like Verstappen, Leclerc and Norris.
MichaelN

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Chris Monk, Ciaran, Jonathan, Camo8723, David Knutson, Sevrige and Omarr-Pepper!

On this day in motorsport

  • On this day in 1972 Emerson Fittipaldi took a significant step towards his first world championship by winning at the Osterreichring after early leader Jackie Stewart dropped back with handling problems in his new Tyrrell

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Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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10 comments on “Gasly: No explanation for AlphaTauri’s midfield struggles”

  1. Delphi
    13th August 2022, 3:08

    I’ve never been a fan of Gio but he certainly picked the wrong year to be in a Dragon/Penske migrating from manufacturer to customer, ending up with a Haas style gap-year-car seemingly assembled from the parts bin. Only makes it to the flag in half the races started with his experienced team-mate’s car doing much better on reliability for similarly thin rewards. Had a good weekend last time out though, even if the car effectively wrecked it, hopefully he has a good last hurrah this weekend.

  2. some racing fan
    13th August 2022, 7:09

    Wait how do you steal a race car?

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      Jere (@jerejj)
      13th August 2022, 7:54

      @some racing fan Same question.
      Not like such vehicles are parked in a public space or parking area like vehicles used for regular driving.

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      chimaera2003 (@chimaera2003)
      13th August 2022, 8:05

      I suspect it would have been loaded into a truck and then the truck was stolen. Under this scenario i reckon someone inside the team told a third party when the car would be on the truck and unguarded. Clear inside job since if the car was in a workshop instead then stealing the car without damaging it would be very difficult.

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        Jere (@jerejj)
        13th August 2022, 9:28

        @chimaera2003 Not to mention without getting seen by anyone if one tried to steal from a workshop.
        An inside job is indeed the only realistic option.
        @bernasaurus – True.

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      bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
      13th August 2022, 8:33

      Surely it’s only value would be to strip the parts? You’re not going get far just sanding off the chassis number. But even then you can’t hang around the back of the paddock with a duffle bag offering people suspension components for very long, motorsport talks.

      It’s either someone so well connected they parts are off the car and in another teams inventory, or it’s an idiot who took a chance and now has a car that they can’t do anything with.

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    bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
    13th August 2022, 7:29

    It’s interesting that Sotherby’s market the chassis as an ex-Schumacher who scored 4 points in it rather than Piquet who won in it.

    I guess not many names can rival that of Schumacher – Senna I guess, Hamilton some day soon probably. And it would seem Piquet is doing his upmost to sully his name own name at the moment anyway.

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    Jere (@jerejj)
    13th August 2022, 7:52

    How is stealing a racing car even realistically possible?

    Österreichring doesn’t start with O. I’m surprised Gasly didn’t say Rouen, given that’s his POB.
    Misleading/cheating as language-specific letters or aspects should get considered.

    COTD is interesting & also valid, to an extent at least.

    1. Bob C.
      13th August 2022, 9:28

      Possibly not all criminals operate at a Professor Moriarty-like level of intelligent premeditation, and just steal something valuable without much thought to how to get it off their hands later?

      Case in point: about five years ago, someone stole no less than six gliders (sailplanes) from a club here in Denmark (that is one MAJOR truckload of airplanes, even derigged).

      They were certainly valuable (up towards 140,000 euros for the most expensive one), but how anyone would imagine getting to use them is off-scale stupid.

      Gliders need to be registered on the national register of the country that they are used in (with registration painted in huge letters on fuselage and wings for all to see), all parts are serial numbered, each plane must be inspected for airworthiness annually by an independent inspector, and the results of the inspection must be recorded with the authorities. Parts are only available by serial number from the original manufacurer. There is paperwork, paperwork and more paperwork (I have to produce a complete paper trail going back to 1974 at the annual inspection of my glider). And, of course, the gliding world, like motorsports, is a small internationally tight-knight communitity.

      And yet, someone rolled up with a truck, broke open the hangar doors loaded everything and drove off.

      This year the planes were found, abandoned, dusty, and dirty, in a barn somewhere in Lithuania. They hadn’t even been reassembled.

      So, maybe just someone thinking “hey, racecars must be worth a lot of money. I’ll nick one and get rich” D’oh!

  5. Profile Photo

    Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
    13th August 2022, 12:56

    Having 2 awful drivers does explain AT’s struggles.

Comments are closed.