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AlphaTauri’s French Grand Prix form “encouraged” the team that its performance on conventional Formula 1 circuits is back to being good enough to fight for fifth in the constructors’ championship after a mini-slump on such tracks.
Pierre Gasly qualified sixth and finished seventh at Paul Ricard, extending AlphaTauri’s advantage over Aston Martin in the battle for fifth to five points – with Alpine a further 11 points back.
This builds on strong results on the street circuits in Monaco and Azerbaijan and, the team hopes, confirms it has got on top of the AlphaTauri AT02.
AlphaTauri has, on average, the fifth-fastest car of the season based on single-lap pace with a deficit to the front of 0.934%. Portugal and Spain are the outliers in its season, slipping to 1.390% and 1.617% off the pace respectively with Gasly finishing 10th in both races.
At Paul Ricard, it was just under 1% down, in line with its average, with Gasly finishing on the tail of McLaren driver Daniel Ricciardo.
After taking third in Azerbaijan, Gasly had stressed that “we need to understand where it came from” – having expected to struggle given a perceived slow-corner weakness.
Head of vehicle performance Guillaume Dezoteux believes that understanding has been achieved.
“We had two difficult races in Portugal and Barcelona and then after we had two strong races on the street circuits,” said Dezoteux.
“So we are learning about our package, we have understood what are the strengths and the weaknesses.
“We did a lot of analysis after Portugal and Barcelona to try to tackle the car balance issues we faced there.
“It’s good to show this performance in a more conventional track because obviously the season is made more of tracks like Paul Ricard than street tracks, especially since we won’t race in Singapore.
“We need to keep improving our set-up, we need to keep improving the car but it’s generally looking good. Obviously, it’s a very tight battle for fifth place in the championship.”
Dezoteux suggested that going so well at Paul Ricard, a track where the team struggled in its Toro Rosso guise, is particularly encouraging.
Earlier in the season, some rival teams suspected AlphaTauri’s early-season form was flattered by the opening two races happening in Bahrain and at Imola, strong venues for the team.
But to go well at Paul Ricard suggests that the level of performance it delivered on favoured tracks is repeatable regularly.
“We are encouraged, especially because a few years back here we always struggled quite a lot with performance,” said Dezoteux.
“It is a difficult track for set-up to find the right compromise between the different types of corners and in this weekend it has been pretty strong, so this is definitely encouraging, and on our tyre management it’s also encouraging.
“Obviously, some people have done a slightly better job so there are things we need to revise and understand if we can improve them, but generally it has been a pretty good showing.”
The upcoming double-header offers the chance to confirm that AlphaTauri’s encouragement is well-placed.
The Red Bull Ring is a circuit where the team has had patchy results since it was revived as an F1 venue in 2014, with only four points finishes from a possible 16. But Gasly did finish seventh in last year’s Austrian Grand Prix, with Daniil Kvyat taking 10th in the Styrian GP that followed.
“We have worked a lot to improve our car in this kind of track, where there is a strong requirement to get the car balance right in low-speed corners and in high-speed, long-duration corners,” Dezoteux added.
“So we have done a few things to improve in that direction and they were positive in Paul Ricard. We are looking to see if it’s good enough to make us a strong contender in the midfield for Austria.
“So we’re looking forward to the races in Austria and are positive because we think we can fight for fifth in the championship.”
