Alpine F1 driver Pierre Gasly finished just shy of the points at 11th in last weekend’s Australian GP. From 9th on the grid, unfortunate timing hampered what could have been a points finish for the the French driver.
Gasly dissapointed with strategic gamble in F1 Australian GP
Alpine and Gasly were plagued with issues during the F1 Australian GP. As Gasly implied, after the second Safety Car restart, not responding to the rain intensifying and staying out with slick tyres was the wrong move for them.
He had been running in P9 for over 40 laps. It briefly became P3 as others pitted for inters at the end of lap 44, and that was the right call. Hülkenberg, Antonelli and Stroll all jumped him, although he was ahead of the Ferraris and Tsunoda before the restart as he boxed before the Safety Car.
“It’s a shame when you stay out and actually do the hard work to keep it on track, which we did on these slick tyres.
“It was a handful to drive, but I could see a lot of guys making mistakes and I just thought, ‘okay, if I really keep it on track, it will be fine’.
“I managed to pass Yuki [Tsunoda], I think we were looking at the time third on track or second. I thought, ‘okay, if it stays like that, I can barely hold on it’.
“But unfortunately, we just did one or two extra laps and the rain just increased and ended up losing out too much.
“For sure, a bit of a shame because we spent the majority of the race in that sort of group with Yuki [Tsunoda], [Alex] Albon, Lewis [Hamilton], I think for fifth, sixth, seventh, which is where the battle was.
“And in the end, we boxed a bit late, dropped.”
Alpine plagued with issues
What happened after the last Safety Car restart didn’t help Alpine’s case. As he was having trouble with the front-right brake disc after the Safety Car restart and lose even more time as the tyres kept locking up.
“And on that last Safety Car, I just lost the front right disc so the thing just went dead and I couldn’t get the temperature in it.
“And every time I braked, I couldn’t slow down the car and I kept locking the front right tyre. It just feels like today, it just didn’t come our way and missed out, P11.“
Not all hope was lost however. As Pierre Gasly believes that the car is able to fight for points, even if the first race handed them the short end of the stick, as well as issues with the brakes all weekend.
Running in P8 after that final restart, Gasly went deep at turn 1 as he locked up, took a trip across the wet grass and lost out to the Ferraris heading down to turn 3. Oscar Piastri would also pass him as he ended up 11th.
“It’s clearly a bit of a shame, but it felt like it was a bit of a lottery when you look at the final classification.
“I do feel like the whole weekend I struggled with the brakes. I had a couple of issues with it since Friday and it does feel like there are stuff we can improve as well.
“So even though it felt like it was more tricky than winter testing, we were still there, you know, to battle and fight in the mix. So yeah, I’m confident for China. We’ll be there.
“And yeah, today was a pretty crazy start of this 2025 season. Unfortunately, we fell on the wrong side of it, could have gone very easily the other way. And yeah, that’s how it is when these conditions happen.”
Safety Car restart
Asked if he was satisfied of the call from the FIA to only use a Safety Car in the F1 Australian GP when trucks came on track to clear Fernando Alonoso’s car, the 2020 Italian GP winner said that it was fine for the most part, although having the tyres operate at such low temperatures made it difficult to drive.
“I think we’ll review a little bit more time. What’s very tricky at the moment is as soon as we’re behind the Safety Car, the temperature of the tyres drops so far down that even at very low speed, it’s actually quite tricky to just have any sort of grip.
“So you see a lot of guys just losing the car everywhere, but it’s just like the tyres are far, far away from the sort of normal temperature range.
“I’m sure we’ll review what we can do to improve, but generally, yes, it was fine.”
About Jack Doohan
All isn’t well however for Gasly’s teammate Jack Doohan, however. Not only did Doohan crash on the first lap of the race after a sudden mishap, he is also under big pressure with multiple reserve drivers waiting in the wings, including Franco Colapinto.
Pierre Gasly complimented his teammate for his speed over the F1 Australian GP weekend and said it was not the best way for rookies like Doohan to start their careers in.
“To be fair, it was probably the toughest conditions, even myself out there, like on these first few laps, every time we start up the stint, I just felt like we were struggling for grip.
“Honestly, he’s been doing a very good job all weekend and just a shame. It was probably throwing him in the deep end with this sort of condition. So yeah, I’m confident he’ll come back next weekend and do the job.”
