It was a very positive weekend for Pierre Gasly, who ended the F1 Bahrain GP in P7. In fact, the Alpine driver had qualified in the top 5, a great improvement in performance compared to last season’s troubles which had happened right here at this same track. His younger teammate Jack Doohan had a better weekend as well compared to his massive Suzuka crash.
A positive weekend
Ultimately, Gasly managed to score the first points of Alpine’s 2025 season in the Bahrain GP. However, he also had a final source of disappointment as reigning champion Max Verstappen managed to complete a move on him into turn 4 on the final lap.
Gasly broke down what happened during the Bahrain GP in the print media zone post-race, highlighting the significance of the day:
“Crossing the line was a kind of mixed feeling because I absolutely hate losing a position in the last lap, especially after having to work so hard over the last 20 laps trying to keep Max at bay.
“So yeah, it’s always frustrating, but on the other side, once the adrenaline is going to come down a bit, looking back last week, we were not even fighting for the top 10 and Max was winning the race, so it just shows how much of a good weekend we’ve had as a team.”
He then recalled the main positive takeaways from the Bahrain round, focusing on the excellent speed they had and the performance the whole team delivered.
“The car was competitive, the quali was amazing, the race was great, good strategy, good pit stops, and, even with that unlucky timing with the Safety Car where we lost the position to Lewis in the end, still a lot of positives to take.”
An untimely Safety Car
Pierre Gasly had pitted for hards before the Safety Car and looked to be in a seriously strong position to fight for P5, and at the absolute worst P6 seemed to be his. However, Lewis Hamilton jumped him at the stops as the Ferrari driver had not pitted before the Safety Car. It also brought Max Verstappen into play again.
“It’s just like, when I saw for what it was, I’m sure we’re going to talk about it. At that time I had a nice gap on Max, I had a nice gap on Lewis and the guys around, and it’s like we worked all the race, and now for a few bits of carbon, which actually, if I’m not wrong, Yuki [Tsunoda] had a contact, and actually gave him a 10 second reduction on his pit stop time, so it was a nice gain for some guys,” he added, recalling another decisive episode of the day: on Lap 32 the race was neutralised, allowing for race leader Piastri and the rest of the top 5 to pit and gain a secure advantage over the rest of the grid, which included Gasly.
“But, ultimately that’s racing, we’ve got to do, we’ve got to get on with it and that’s the way it is, but for sure, even though it didn’t all come our way, we still managed to finish that race in P7, score our first points of the season, which is very positive.”
But what’s next?
The former Red Bull driver was unfortunately unsure of the potential pace Alpine might have in the next round, as he explained the lack of consistency in the A525 so far.
“I want to believe so, the reality is I absolutely have no idea because, we did the winter test here, the car felt really good, we definitely had quite high expectations going into the season and unfortunately in Australia and China, well, Australia I think were competitive, but China and Suzuka was a lot more difficult.
“So it’s important for us to understand where the performance came from this weekend and I’m sure we’ll be able to repeat on some other tracks, but hopefully we can just get it more consistently.”
2024 vs 2025
On the other hand, the contrast with the performances from Gasly’s first year with the French team at the same time of the year, right at the F1 Bahrain GP, is stark. Indeed, in 2024 Gasly and his then teammate Esteban Ocon had only managed to score two points after the first 8 rounds. Bahrain was a huge low as they were dead last on the grid.
“Wow, yeah. Last year it was kind of like hitting rock bottom, like both cars, 19th and 20th and really far off, Max probably lapped us after half race last year. So a very different picture. Twelve months later we were fighting with him until the last lap.
“I’m very pleased with the sort of the efforts the team are putting in and just the performance we’re able to extract.”
“We know where the current weaknesses are, we know there is some work to do in the car, like some areas which not quite click, like low speed traction, all this stuff are areas where we need to improve. But the overall performance of the cars massively improved just thanks to all the great work people are doing at the factory.”
On to Jeddah
Gasly then briefly discussed what’s next to come in the upcoming Saudi Arabian round, where he hopes he will be able to extend his points streak.
“I want to believe that we can be competitive, like when you finish P7 and qualify P5 you want to do it again. It’s a very different track, we’ll have to get some answers on why we were so competitive this weekend, but I’m having a lot more fun fighting with Max than fighting more towards the back, so hopefully we can reproduce that.”
Doohan is improving as well
Lastly, Gasly also had some kind words for his new rookie teammate, Jack Doohan, and his ever improving performances in the Bahrain GP.
“I think he puts in like, honestly, a strong performance. It’s only a few details, fortunately, that last set in Q2 didn’t quite work for him, but at this stage he’s just learning every session a lot. Yeah, I think he did miss out on Q3 by a few hundreds.
“For the race, he was in P9, I’m not too sure exactly what happened, but generally he’s just rising up his game every weekend.”
