Gasly: Friday in Saudi Arabia 'very very good' for AlphaTauri

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Pierre Gasly was clearly buzzing after his first taste of the brand new Jeddah Corniche Circuit, which turned out very well for the ALphaTauri driver and his young team mate Yuki Tsunoda.

Gasly was third fastest in the daytime session and moved ahead of Max Verstappen to go third quickest in the night practice under the floodlights.

“I must say, I really enjoyed it,” Gasly told the media in interviews after the end of the day's track activity. “It’s very high-speed.

"We’re going through the corners at some crazy, crazy speeds, and you get quite a lot of adrenaline - a big rush of adrenaline! - and the whole day has been very, very good for us.

Read also: Hamilton and Bottas stay quickest in Saudi Arabia FP2

“We were fourth this morning and third this afternoon, really happy with the pace, but still a bit more work to do for the long runs.

"We know on Saturday we usually do pretty well, so I’m quite confident for [qualifying] even if I still think we have work to do to improve and find a bit more performance.

"Mainly it’s for us to work on Sunday,” he added. "That's where we struggle usually a bit more, and today I didn’t feel great during the long runs, so I think we’ve got a bit more work to do on that side."

As for Tsunoda, for once his rookie status is no disadvantage at a circuit where no one has any experience of driving at. After a quiet start in FP1, the Japanese driver was eighth quickest in FP2.

"Overall today was a good day," he said. "The pace today was quite good.

"Especially the first sector, I’ve never driven a circuit with corners like this before, so it’s been pretty special," he said. "Turn 13 was completely new for me and I think Sector 2, Sector 3 a little bit different kind of corners compared to Sector 1, but still enjoyable."

“I just have to adapt to the different compounds: the hard tyre was quite good, but the soft tyre didn’t feel quite good as the hard tyre.

"Overall, I think we’re looking quite strong so far. I didn’t manage to complete any long runs yet, but today’s performance makes me positive.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.