"I'm confident": Pierre Gasly confident that Alpine can progress closer to the front with upgrades

Alpine driver Pierre Gasly is confident that the team can progress closer to the front of the grid with upgrades.

The French driver has had a decent start to life at Alpine. He's scored points in the first race of the season in Bahrain. Gasly trailed his teammate Esteban Ocon in the second race and was completing a competitive outing before the red flag restart ruined things in Australia.

The driver hasn't been found wanting in any which way and his transition has been seamless within the team. Having said that, the team has been unable to hit the markers that it had set in the pre-season. Alpine was aiming to consolidate the P4 finish it secured last season and close the gap to the front.

So far, those targets have not been achieved. Talking about the possibility of the Alpine cutting down the gap with its upgrades, Pierre Gasly was confident that the team could make it happen, just like it did last season as well. He said:

“Yeah, I’m confident. I think the team definitely showed last year they were probably the best team in terms of development through the year, so there’s a good understanding and correlation between the upgrades they’re bringing on the race track."

He added:

“So it’s just a matter of time until we see new parts coming on the car and obviously, there is also this part of understanding between the team and myself, really understanding what I need out of a race car to extract the maximum of it. Generally speaking, the overall performance hasn’t been as good as we aim for, and we’ll work to make that better over the next few races.”

Pierre Gasly has started positively in his battle with teammate Esteban Ocon

Pierre Gasly will be confident about the start that he's had at Alpine. He's not too far away from teammate Esteban Ocon and things have been very close between the two drivers. The race in Australia was the first one where Pierre Gasly was truly outperforming Ocon and was getting more out of the car.

If it wasn't for the Red Flag stoppage he was on course to score a very impressive top 5 finish while his teammate was still in the fringes of the top 10. This kind of result is surely going to boost the confidence of the French driver as the battle between him and Ocon is always going to be very close.