“It was a very difficult year for us,” Pierre Gasly reflects on his performances in the 2022 season


“It was a very difficult year for us,” Pierre Gasly reflects on his performances in the 2022 season

Pierre Gasly opens up about 2022 season

When Pierre Gasly came out in his AlphaTauri overalls for the season’s first race in Bahrain, he had some big ambitions from 2022. But as he openly addressed his last season as an AlphaTauri racer in a recent interview, the Frenchman expressed how he is upset over the results. He talked about the difficulties his team and he had encountered, as well as the higher expectations he had had before the season. While no one expected it to be his last season with Scuderia AlphaTauri, it seemed like he was going to move out of the team in due time.

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Last season, Pierre Gasly‘s position in the Drivers’ Championship dropped from ninth to fourteenth. The F1 driver was thoroughly disappointed by the complicated season the team had to face. Before joining the BWT Alpine F1 Team in 2023, Gasly said his final year with AlphaTauri was perhaps the hardest. At first, Gasly continued to believe everything might be okay. He had previously taken into account the fact that the season will be a development race and was upbeat about riding the growth curve but his AlphaTauri racecar impeded him.

AlphaTauri AT03 F1 & Pierre Gasly

Pierre Gasly competed for AlphaTauri in 22 races during the 2022 Formula 1 season. Pierre was able to rank fifth during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix out of a total of 22 races. Looking at the races that Gasly failed to complete, we can see that this occurred three times. After placing in the top ten in the Drivers’ Championship for the previous two years in a row, Gasly fell to fourteenth place in 2022 and saw his points total plummet from 108 in 2021 to just 23 in 2022.

Elaborating his misfortunes in the recently-concluded season, Pierre Gasly said, “Unfortunately, it was a very difficult year for us. Probably the most difficult ever, or similar to 2018, when I joined the team, and the performance was not there at that time.” Initially, he entered the season with an open mind. He had expectations and ambitions for the team. So, he added, “I was very much looking forward to this big rule change. We had an excellent 2021 and so our expectations and ambitions were high.”  

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Did AlphaTauri fail to capitalize on the 2022 FIA update?

Pierre Gasly getting ready to drive for AlphaTauri

Scuderia AlphaTauri was one of the teams that genuinely struggled to get the most out of their vehicle because the AT03 was difficult to drive during the entire season due to new aerodynamic regulations that would go into effect in 2022. “The automobile has potential, in my opinion. But what also made us weaker,says the Frenchman.

According to Gasly the updated regulations and the budget standard was something the team was unable to cooperate well. He focused on aerodynamics and said that for the downforce produced by the vehicle, the car drove too slowly. And there was simply less contact pressure overall. Other coordinates were also impacted by this. The overall performance in the race is significantly impacted by a tiny change in downforce.

Related: It’s official: Nico Hulkenberg returns to Formula 1 holding hands with the Haas F1 team

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