Pierre Gasly says that Alpine's A523 is still missing "quite a few things" for it to suit his driving style and for him to extract "101%" from his machine.
Gasly is trailing his Alpine teammate Esteban Ocon by 13 points in F1's Drivers' standings, having scored seven top-ten finishes in the first twelve races of the season.
In Belgium last time out, Gasly delivered a strong result – third – in the event's Sprint race on Saturday, while he concluded his Sunday's just outside the points in P11, with Ocon finishing eighth.
While he enjoyed a trouble-free transition from AlphaTauri to Alpine at the start of the year and now feels that he's getting to grips with his car, Gasly says he's still challenged to extract its full potential on every lap.
"There’s still quite a few things still missing to really suit my driving and stuff that I need to rely on and that I really want to get from the car to naturally be at 101% every single lap.
"At the moment there are certain things I want to do with the car that I can’t really get out of it. Always stuff that we work on but ultimately this year’s car is what it is.
"Mainly in terms of feedback, inputs are important for next year’s car which I will have more input on."
Addressing his car's characteristics and its development over the course of the season, Gasly admitted that Alpine's A523 felt better balanced at the start of the season then now.
"I think it’s consistently trying to chase a bit of balance that I like from it," he added.
"If anything it felt slightly better balanced at the start of the year compared to in the recent events, we need to figure out whether it’s upgrade-related or tyres or track etc.
"But there is some work to do, obviously the overall potential is not quite there compared to our competitors but it seems also quite…a small window to make it operate at its best.
"It’s not easy but F1 isn’t easy and it’s good we have a couple of weeks to review the start of the year. I’m sure we’ll come back stronger for the rest of the year."
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