23/07/2022
NEWS STORY
Yuki Tsunoda: "It is good to be back in Q3 after getting the updates, so great job to the team with ending up in a good position. We were able to get back to the position we want to fight at, so I am quite happy, and now we just have to put it all together tomorrow. We expected to struggle to adapt to the new car, so FP1 and FP2 were a challenge, but together with the engineers, mechanics, and the team we were able to come back. We changed our approach to the balance and that worked well straight away, which was the turning point for our result today. Everyone in the factory did a great job about the medium-speed corners, which is what we were aiming for and we achieved that target. Based on our long-run pace, I am sure we can bring good performance with the new updates, as they help with the tyres, so we are aiming for points tomorrow. Strategy will be important between a one-stop or two, but I am confident in the team we will make the right decision."
Pierre Gasly: "I'm extremely disappointed to miss out on Q2 by a couple of hundredths at my home race. Yesterday we were extremely comfortable with the car in the Top 10, with some margin to be even faster and since FP3 I haven't been able to deliver the same performance and I struggled a lot, so we need a bit more time to analyse. I wasn't really competitive in Quali, we just weren't fast enough, and at the moment I don't know why. I was doing clean laps, but the car was sliding a lot in all the slow-speed corners. Tomorrow is a new day, so we will come up with a different strategy. Race day brings a lot of opportunities and we have nothing to lose, so we will try everything to recover. It will be tough and long for everyone, but I hope we can deliver a good race. It is an amazing feeling to race at your home Grand Prix and I want to put the best performance together for them."
Guillaume Dezoteux (Head of Vehicle Performance): "After a positive Friday, which confirmed the progress made with the new developments, we were looking for a third practice session dedicated to Qualifying preparation. While for Yuki there was clear progress from yesterday, it was a difficult session for Pierre, who couldn't really extract the potential from the car and got knocked out in Q1. His last lap was looking good, he was improving a lot compared to his previous attempt, when he lost the car in Turn 6. We need to understand with Pierre and the engineers what happened there, because all the car parameters looked normal up to that point. Yuki did a good job bringing the car to the last Quali session and securing the 8th place on the grid. He showed consistent driving for the entire session. Now we need to analyse how our strengths have evolved and where we need to improve with the updates we have brought here, but we can be happy to have closed the gap to McLaren and Alpine in the midfield. Tonight, we will simulate different race scenarios for both drivers with the target of bringing home good points tomorrow."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Le Castellet here.