AlphaTauri’s Guillaume Dezoteux: “This result puts us in a strong position for tomorrow”

Guillaume Dezoteux, the Head of Vehicle Performance at Scuderia AlphaTauri, was delighted to see both Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda advance into the top ten shootout in Qualifying for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, and then lock out the fourth row of the grid.

Gasly, a podium finisher at this event last year, will start seventh on the grid at the Baku City Circuit, with Tsunoda just two-tenths of a second back in eighth, the best result of the season for the Faenza-based Italian team.

Dezoteux was happy the team were able to avoid any mishaps like what happened to Gasly during Qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix last time out when the red flags flew in Azerbaijan, and to come away with both cars inside the top eight was pleasing to see, particularly with how close the midfield pack have been this weekend.

“The last free practice session highlighted how tight the midfield was going to be for Quali, with just above 0.5s difference from P5 to P16!” said Dezoteux.  “We elected to keep only one hard tyre for the race, in order to maximise our chances in Quali by using five sets of soft tyres.

“The first Qualifying session was intense, especially with the red flag at 2min 30s before the end. We managed it well and both cars were able to make it through with strong laps. The second Qualifying session started very well, we went out on used tyres and continued to show the competitiveness of our package on this layout.

“During the new tyre run at the end of Q2, Yuki made a mistake and went long in T2 after light contact with the wall. Luckily there was no damage, and we could carry on.

“Q3 was great and we managed to out-qualify the midfield, as well as one of the Mercedes. Pierre wasn’t able to improve on his last attempt with new tyres, which is something we need to analyse and understand with him.

“Yuki had a great last lap, which is never easy after making a mistake earlier in the session.”

Dezoteux believes the strong result in Qualifying puts them in a good place when it comes to Sunday’s race, and they will be doing everything they can overnight to plan the best strategies in order to score points with both Gasly and Tsunoda.

“This result puts us in a strong position for tomorrow, we will review all the possible strategies to convert this good ranking into the maximum number of points in the race,” he said.