Three races into their new partnership, Pierre Gasly and Alpine are feeling happy and confident in each other's progress so far in 2023 - while admitting there is more to come and that it will take time to reach their peak.
Gasly moved to the team at the start of the season to join Esteban Ocon in the driver line-up, replacing Fernando Alonso who departed for Aston Martin at the end of 2022.
Gasly finished in the top ten in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and had looked set to pick up fifth place in Australia before he collided with Ocon in a fraught restart following a red flag late in the race.
As a result, Gasly and Ocon are currently tied on four points in the drivers championship, meaning that Alpine itself is sixth in the constructors standings.
It's not quiet the flying start that team had been hoping for, but Gasly is confident that forthcoming upgrades will help boost their campaign.
"I’m confident,” he said when asked about his hopes for Alpine’s development programme for the remainder of 2023. “Generally speaking the overall performance hasn’t been as good as we aim for.
"We’ll work to make that better over the next few races," he continued.
“I wouldn’t say that I’m pleased because we obviously want to fight higher up the grid and it feels like so far we’re a bit in no man’s land behind the top four teams."
Last season Alpine pipped McLaren to fourth place in the championship, having opted for a continuous rolling programme of upgrades rather than bundling them into one big development package every few races.
Now there's an added complication of Aston Martin's sudden emergence as a force to be reckoned with, as well as the traditional 'Big Three' teams of Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari.
"It’s really close, but we're still chasing and trying to get closer to those front runners," he said. "Generally, I think it’s been an OK start, a decent start, but as a team we want to be fighting for bigger points.
"The team definitely showed last year they were probably the best team in terms of development through the year," he pointed out. "There’s a good understanding and correlation between the upgrades they’re bringing on the racetrack.
“It’s just a matter of time until we see new parts coming on the car," he said, with the technical team said to be eyeing an improvement of up to six tenths of a second with its current upgrades in the pipeline."
And Gasly was first to admit that he needed to upgrade his own performance as he settled into the team at Enstone and got used to the A522 after years with Red Bull and AlphaTauri.
"Obviously there is also this part of understanding between the team and myself, really understanding what I need out of a race car to extract the maximum of it," he acknowledged.
"He's new and it takes time," commented Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer, speaking to the media in Melbourne last week. "He's still getting comfortable with us.
"He's enjoying the team, he likes his engineering team and the mechanics, and we like him," he added. "He's fast but it will take time at the margin to eke every little bit out of the car
"I think it's just a better understanding of driver and engineering team to set the car up like he likes it."
Szafnauer said that he'd spoken to Gasly after the Saudi Arabian GP. "He said, 'Look, give me a couple more races and there's a couple of tenths in me.'"
Gasly will get his next opportunity to showcase his talents at the Azerbaijan GP at the end of April, with Alpine among the teams reported to be bringing new development parts to Baku.
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