Pierre Gasly claims he was 'so mad' to start the 2023 F1 Bahrain GP from the 'city centre'

Pierre Gasly admits it wasn't ideal to start the first race of his Alpine career at the back of the grid. The French driver messed up his qualifying lap on Saturday and was eliminated in Q1. Fortunately for Pierre Gasly, the driver through the field was impressive and helped him secure points for the team in Bahrain.

Talking about the race to F1TV, Pierre Gasly admitted he expected an eventful race and was happy to keep his calm and make his way through the field. He said,

“I knew starting from the Bahrain city centre, it would be quite an eventful race so I had to stay calm. I knew we had race pace, yesterday [qualifying] it didn’t come together so I had to make up for it today. I was so mad last night. All morning I was so focused, I had these points as my target. The team did a great start, race pace was good, and it was important for the first race with Alpine to get these points.”

He added:

“Definitely had to be quite smart because sometimes I was just stuck in a DRS train and sometimes I had to push hard on out-laps. When I could use the car’s pace, I definitely had to go for it and make a couple of important moves in the race. I’m happy because I could see and I could feel there is potential in the car. I came close to Valtteri in the end but we know that if we fix what didn’t go well, we are clearly there for the points on Sundays.”

We'll fix the errors next time: Pierre Gasly

Gasly admitted that the error in qualifying was unexpected but it also showed how small margins can make a huge difference in the midfield. The French driver was confident that this can be fixed and the team will come back stronger and said:

“That’s two laps and that’s probably the only two laps that didn’t come together since I did the first test in the car. Was a shame but shows that in the midfield if you don’t get everything right it’s so close you pay the price straight well. It was a one-off. We recovered from that, we’ll fix that, and make sure we start in the right position next time.”

Pierre Gasly was able to score points in his very first race with the team. It will be interesting to see how his battle with teammate Esteban Ocon unfolds.