Alpine hid its true potential in testing at Sakhir by not operating mushy tyres or low gas, however Gasly picked up the tempo in second apply, when he was an encouraging seventh.
Nonetheless, whereas team-mate Esteban Ocon progressed to Q3 and earned ninth place on the grid, Gasly fought understeer and traction points and was slowest of all in Q1.
“It is clearly a one-off,” he stated when requested by Autosport what had gone improper. “I do not absolutely have the solutions now.
“However I regarded for extra entrance the entire weekend, and struggled with understeer. I do not know why, it was simply approach too excessive for the situations, and was a bit in every single place on all of the exits.
“I used to be very snug all by means of apply. I used to be simply fine-tuning from session to session. However the normal automobile stability has been all the time the identical each single time I’ve jumped in that automobile.
“In quali you type of go for it. And all of the references or expectations that I constructed up by means of the weekend simply disappeared, and it was very totally different when it comes to automobile stability. I simply did not put the lap collectively and it is a disgrace.
“We’ll look to grasp what’s occurred, clearly not the perfect begin, however I do know there’s far more primarily based on what we have confirmed and simply want to grasp somewhat bit why I wasn’t in a position to extract it immediately and concentrate on tomorrow.
“I am assured there’s far more in it than clearly what we present immediately [Saturday].”
Pierre Gasly, Alpine A523
Photograph by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Requested if there was a problem with tyre warm-up, he stated: “It wasn’t supreme on the out-lap. And I suppose everyone can just about say the identical. So on the finish, you are searching for small particulars. I am not going responsible the out-lap, it was only a poor lap and issues simply did not click on.
“It was primarily like simply the traction, could not actually get out of the opposite corners, and it is simply very reverse automobile stability than what I had in apply.
“I do not actually have the solutions, however we’ll look into it later immediately and in addition the weekend, however now we have to concentrate on the race.”
Gasly admitted he was stunned by the velocity of some the automobiles that saved him in 20th and final.
“We positively did not anticipate these guys to point out that a lot tempo,” he famous.
“However I imply, for now, it is primarily taking a look at ourselves. It is just about the primary time that we went all out, and simply the automobile behaved very in another way to no matter I’ve skilled earlier than.”
