"It was a pretty tough day": Pierre Gasly dejected after a poor 2023 F1 Azerbaijan GP qualifying session

Pierre Gasly had a poor start to the 2023 F1 Azerbaijan GP race weekend. The French driver accidentally collided with the wall at turn three in the Q1 session, bringing out a second red flag. Nyck de Vries had a much more severe head-on crash in the same turn that brought out the first red flag of the qualifying session.

Speaking to the media, including Sportskeeda, Pierre Gasly expressed how disappointed he was with the result. He praised how Alpine managed to fix the car issues that crept up in FP1, just minutes before the qualifying session. However, the qualifying session was undesirable for him as well. He said:

"Well obviously, very disappointed, [it] was a pretty tough day, a pretty tough Friday. Overall, for us as a team with FP1 which didn't go as planned, we had an hydraulic issue in the first 20 minutes, and the boys did an incredible job to repair the car just literally a minute before the qualifying, and then after it was tricky."

Pierre Gasly further explained how he was unable to brake hard enough for the turn and accidentally bumped into the wall, completely ruining the right side of his car. Despite all this, he is still positive and hopes to put all the mishaps behind him and focus on the sprint shootout and race on Saturday. He concluded:

"Coming into turn three, I didn't brake so late, but didn't brake hard enough, and thought I could make the corner and unfortunately just understeered and put it into the wall. So, no, pretty frustrating, Thanks to the new format at least we can put this behind us for tomorrow and refresh with the Sprint tomorrow."

Pierre Gasly will start the main race from 19th, while his Alpine teammate Esteban Ocon will start from 12th.

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Pierre Gasly on new car upgrades Alpine brought to Baku

Pierre Gasly is optimistic about the new upgrades Alpine brought to the 2023 F1 Azerbaijan GP. The Frenchman spoke to Sportskeeda and explained how the effect of each upgrade part also depends on what other teams are bringing for their car. Nonetheless, he said that they have brought a different floor, which could help them close the gap to the pack:

"It is always the same story where, there’s what we bring and depends what others are bringing as well on the weekends. We’ll have to see what’s on the other teams. I think it’s relatively, it’s a different floor."

Gasly concluded:

"We’ll see what we get here but I’m pretty hopeful it’s gonna bring us closer to the pack ahead."

Alpine currently sit in sixth place in the constructors' championship with eight points in their pocket.