"We haven't really made the step we were hoping for": Pierre Gasly reflects on Alpine's recent slump in form

Pierre Gasly believes the Alpine car has multiple areas that need to be improved. Speaking to media including Sportskeeda, the Alpine driver claimed they haven’t been able to improve the car’s performance as they had expected.

Asked if the current car has improved in balance through the races to drive it more competitively, Gasly said:

“At the moment no, obviously they are different areas of improvement. There’s the overall downforce, which will bring you load and will make you faster.

"And there’s obviously the improvement of the through corner balance, which is another topic, the sensitivity through the different conditions and at that minute we are chasing all of that, to be fair. "

He continued:

So its not like there is one area which is weaker than the others, but we are just trying to make the package stronger. And we haven’t really made the step that we hoped for.”

On whether the car had improved in its balance from the season opener to now, Pierre Gasly felt it hadn’t improved enough for them to be competitive.

The Frenchman claimed there were multiple areas such as overall downforce, sensitivity, cornering and overall performance that needed improvement. Although they are trying to make their car competitive, he felt Alpine are not where they expected to be in terms of performance and results.

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Pierre Gasly feels Alpine need to improve their overall qualifying pace

Speaking ahead of the Belgium GP, Pierre Gasly felt the trend for Alpine through first half of the season has been that they tend to slack off in qualifying pace.

As far as the pecking order goes, the Frenchman believes they are in the bottom half of the grid. Trusting the process of improvement and development of their car every weekend, the 27 year old feels they need to improve their qualifying performance and work harder on improving their pace.

Explaining their pitfalls through the first half of the season, Pierre Gasly said:

“Well I think throughout the first races of the season, there is clearly a trend and we got a better idea of where we stand in terms of overall performance.

There might be signs in free practice where we look more competitive but we obviously know that it is different, feel it's different. Engine modes are, you get only a true picture when qualifying comes and with I think overall we seem to be slightly towards the back of the top 10.

But we trust the process, we are doing the best preparation we can have for quali(fying), even if it doesn’t look slightly stronger at times and slightly worse. That’s the best way to operate and maximise the potential we have in qualifying.”

In the last race in Hungary, both Alpine drivers Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon retired due to the result of the damage on their cars in the first lap incident. The Alpine duo were punted into each other by Daniel Ricciardo who was hit by Zhou Guanyu.

The Frenchman currently sits 12th in the driver’s standings, contributing 16 points out of the 47 points collected by his team. In his maiden season with the French manufacturer, the former AlphaTauri driver was quick to adapt to his tools and surroundings but is yet to overtake his teammate, who is currently leading him in the championship points.