Pierre Gasly knows AlphaTauri's issues are 'mainly aerodynamics'

Pierre Gasly believes that the main issues that currently plague AlphaTauri are predominantly related to the aerodynamics of the car. The French driver, who has bagged a win and two podiums in the last few seasons with the Italian team, has been unable to show that kind of performance in 2022.

Talking to the media about the issues that affected the car, the 26-year-old said:

“I think we know it’s mainly aerodynamics. We know that’s the main thing. It’s mainly trying to find more load from the floor, trying to be more efficient, less drag and more load on the car. It’s wind tunnel, CFD [computational fluid dynamics] – we’ve got upgrades coming, but just not planned for like the short-term. The front at the moment is not as strong as I like. Especially medium and low-speed corners, I’m struggling to get the rotation.”

He further added:

“Then after it’s just pure sliding. In high-speed we’re just four-wheel sliding and can’t carry as much speed as what others do. So I don’t think there is any secrets. We know that’s one area we’ve got to improve. I think, mechanically, the car seems to be quite good. You can always find better solutions, but at the moment we know we just need more load on that car.”

Despite this, the Frenchman will be looking to maximize his performance in Barcelona this weekend.

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Pierre Gasly's teammate has similar feelings about the car

Pierre Gasly's teammate Yuki Tsunoda feels the same way about the car and is expecting a tough weekend ahead for the team, especially since numerous other teams are bringing significant upgrades to their cars.

Speaking to the media, the Japanese driver said:

“I expect it’s going to be difficult. Definitely it will be tight fight. We are not leading those fights, kind of we’re slightly back compared to last year, especially. Like Pierre says, we’re not planning any updates in these races, so we definitely have to maximise performance every time especially to be in Q3 and also fight for the points.”

Commenting on other teams' updates, he said:

“I heard, for example, Alpine’s bringing new updates, Alfa Romeo, Haas, whatever. So it will be difficult. But at the same time we went [into] Q3 last time with both cars. We have a quite okay car so hopefully that performance will last quite long until the next new updates. Until then [we’ll] just try to have feedback as much as possible and work with the team to make a proper direction to have decent updates for next time.”

Pierre Gasly currently finds himself in 13th place in the championship with 6 points to his name.