Pierre Gasly believes that AlphaTauri are “in the mix” with Ferrari and McLaren following the 2021 season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.
While Ferrari and McLaren scored solid points with both drivers in Bahrain and AlphaTauri amassed just two, Gasly showed some of the potential of his AT02 by putting it fifth on the grid in qualifying.
The Faenza-based outfit were also incredibly consistent during testing, completing the joint-most laps of any team, and Gasly predicted that they could fight with the two rivals teams “on all tracks”.
“I think the pace we’ve shown all weekend we are in the mix with the Ferrari and the McLaren and that’s the positive,” he said, as reported by Motorsport.com. “I think we’re clearly going to fight with them and on all tracks.”
Gasly’s hopes of capitalising on his excellent qualifying performance were dashed on the opening lap when he made contact with Daniel Ricciardo and was forced to pit.
“When I had the contact with the McLaren, after that the race was pretty much over,” he added.
“I broke the front wing, I damaged the floor and then that was it pretty much. We had some more issues towards the end of the race, which meant we had to retire the car.
“Obviously, I’m very disappointed because there was a good fight with the Ferrari and the McLaren. We missed some good points.”
Yuki Tsunoda, Gasly’s rookie teammate, did manage to secure points for the team with a ninth-place finish, and like the Frenchman he looked at home in the car.
With a home race for the team approaching at Imola next weekend, Gasly said he is focused on getting back into the points.
“Looking at the positives I think the whole weekend we’ve showed some really strong pace in qualifying, the long run on Friday looked strong and I think we would have been in the fight with the Ferrari and the McLaren,” he said.
“It didn’t happen, so now we just need to keep doing our work and focus on the next one and make sure that we get the points there.
“I’m sure we’ll be back fighting with them for the next ones.”