Pierre Gasly has given credence to Mercedes claims they are not quite up to speed in the wake of the last Formula 1 preseason test in Bahrain, the AlphTauri driver spent a handful of laps in close company to Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes W13 on track.
As a pretext to this report it’s worth noting, Mercedes and Hamilton believe they do not have a winning package in the radical version of their 2022 car which has of course split opinions. The World Champions are famous for crying wolf at this time of the season and then proceed to blow everyone away.
But what Gasly experienced suggests that this time around it might not be sandbagging or a ruse, old ‘tricks’ Mercedes – and most teams – were not shy to use in the past.
This is what the Frenchman had to say on Saturday evening at Sakhir: “I was quite surprised to be fighting with Lewis for a couple of laps but it was entertaining. It was interesting also to follow and just to get some data and feeling following other cars.
And this seems to have worked as planned by the new rules, following closely is now apparently possible, or at least in testing with a couple of cars it was; Gasly continued on that note: “I think it’s clearly better than last year, which makes me quite optimistic in terms of racing for the season.
“It was better, clearly. We kind of overtook each other a couple of times, stayed close to each other – and it was definitely an improvement, so I think racing should be quite fun this year.”
Gasly: Mercedes probably don’t look as good as they were in the past
As for his cameo with Hamilton, Gasly said: “On our side, we have quite a lot of work to do to improve the performance, to improve the car balance. But clearly, I could see Lewis was struggling as well and I think they do have some work to be fighting at the top.
“I think the conclusion is that Mercedes probably don’t look as good as they were in the past. But it’s only testing, it’s part of the test, and exploring how to get the best out of the car.
“In terms of racing it was clearly an interesting few laps, quite fun battles, and I think it should make all the races quite exciting for you guys this season,” predicted the AlphaTauri driver.
Of course, the Mercedes W13 seen in Bahrain was a radical upgrade from the car seen in Barcelona last month, effectively a W13B. Thus they will do the maths at Brackley and no surprise if they pitch up for the opener with the Barcelona version, which was the class of the field in Spain. Hamilton and George Russell ended that three-day test on top of the timesheets.
More recently, looking back on the three days of testing, Gasly summed up: “We’ve had a pretty smooth test from our side, we completed all the program that we had planned for the three days here. We had a lot of question marks coming here and we’ve already managed to get some answers to these.
“I think we still need to sit down for a few days and review all the data we’ve collected, to try and put the puzzle together, so we can get the best possible car for next weekend,” he added referencing the 2022 F1 season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday.
“It’s a new car so there are lots of things to learn, I would say there are still areas that we need to improve for the season but that’s part of the game when you have such a big change in F1.
“We have a rough idea of where we might be in the midfield, but we still don’t know where we’ll be,” admitted 26-year-old Gasly who will start his 87th Grand Prix on Sunday. His AlphaTauri teammate this year is Yuki Tsunoda.
Another day, another epic testing tussle ?
This time: @PierreGASLY ? @LewisHamilton!#F1Testing #F1 pic.twitter.com/8cKsrEE14D
— Formula 1 (@F1) March 12, 2022