Alpine driver Pierre Gasly said the team is undergoing “positive changes” despite the resignation from technical director Matt Harman and aerodynamicist Dirk de Beer.
The French team had a rough start to the 2024 Formula 1 season after drivers Esteban Ocon and Gasly finished P17 and P18 respectively.
Alpine expected degraded performance after introducing a new chassis concept, but the downgrade seems to have been greater than what they initially planned.
However, Gasly has faith the team will improve as the season advances but admitted to being surprised at the departures from head figures.
“It’s always a surprise because I’ve been quite close to Matt, coming inside the team, trying to understand a bit the philosophy, understand the changes we’ve made on this new car,” Gasly said during media day in Jeedah.
“So, obviously, it comes as a bit of a surprise. I obviously knew it slightly before [it was announced].
“At the end of the day, I’d rather focus on my business. I’m going to drive the car fast and push the team forward and give them clear feedback. And that’s where my energy goes into.”
Gasly was cautious about the new technical staff and said that “time will tell” if they are the right fit for the team.
“I trust in Renault, I trust in [Renault CEO] luca [de Meo], I trust in the people in charge to bring the team forward.
“I know it’s contradictory, but there is a lot of positive change going inside the team.”
The French driver highlighted the team’s change in the operations and processes they have when facing each weekend and taking the drivers’ feedback into consideration when fine-tuning their set-up.
“Obviously, that doesn’t mean we go two tenths faster on the race track right now, because the car doesn’t provide us the grip we need. But then I’m pretty sure what we need to do long term is definitely [find] the direction we have to go in as a team.”
