Thursday pace setter Pierre Gasly hailed a good opening day of testing in Bahrain, but the AlphaTauri driver played down the importance of topping the timesheet, insisting his attention is first and foremost on improving the Italian outfit's AT03.
Gasly was the only driver to dip into the 1m33s in Thursday's session, concluding his day with an almost half a second advantage over the Ferrari pair of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc.
"It’s good to be finishing the day in P1," said the Frenchman.
"But we’re always asked at tests how we’re doing, and I think we’ve got to focus mainly on ourselves and our performance, not at the timing screens as, at the moment, it doesn’t mean much until we get to Quali next week.
"Of course, it’s always nice to be top of the rankings, but at the end of the day I know we’ve got some stuff to work on, so we can get more out of the car.
"Overall, it’s been a good day. There are lots of positives with this car but as a racing driver we always focus on the negatives, so we’ll be using the next two days of testing to really get to grips with this car and work to feel more comfortable in it."
Yuki Tsunoda will take over driving duties on Friday but that won't entail a leisurely day poolside for Gasly.
"I’ll be working hard with the engineers tomorrow while Yuki takes over the driving of the car," he added. "
There are new things to discover with this car every time you go out on track, so we have to make the most of every session and learn as much as we can before the first race here next week."
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