It was a positive Qualifying result for Scuderia AlphaTauri on Saturday, with both Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda making it through to Q3. And the team-mates will share row four of the grid for Sunday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Gasly enjoyed his strongest performance of the season to date at the Baku City Circuit, with the Frenchman feeling the AT-03 has been working very well all weekend.
A year on from finishing on the podium in Azerbaijan, Gasly knows anything can happen at this circuit, and he feels he can be in a position to capitalise on anything going wrong for any of the frontrunners on Sunday.
“I’m extremely happy, that’s my best Quali of the year, I don’t think we could’ve hoped for anything better for the team and it’s great we’ve got both cars in the top ten today,” said Gasly. “The team did a great job, the car works really well here, and it was a really strong Quali for us.
“Everything is possible here in Baku, we saw that last year with our podium. It’s very easy to make mistakes on this track, we normally see a lot of red flags, so we’ve got ourselves in a good starting position to capitalise on anything happening at the front.
“We’ve got one set of Hards compared to other teams that have two, so we’ll have to see in terms of our strategy what we want to do, but today I’m really happy with our overall performance.”
“I got a bit lucky getting through to Q3” – Yuki Tsunoda
Team-mate Tsunoda also enjoyed his Saturday in Baku, with the Japanese racer set to start the race from eighth on the grid.
Tsunoda set his best lap time in Q3 on a used set of tyres, which makes his result even more impressive, although he was two-tenths of a second away from Gasly’s best time.
Admitting he was lucky to get through to Q3 at all, Tsunoda says he will be looking to convert his top ten place on the grid into a good haul of points on Sunday afternoon, a venue where he had one his better results of his rookie season in 2021.
“It’s been a good day, I’m really happy with that Quali,” said Tsunoda. “I got a bit lucky getting through to Q3, but I think the lap I did was good, especially considering it was an old set of tyres, so I’m pleased with my performance today.
“As a team, I think we did a fantastic job, so I want to say a big thank you to everyone. Hopefully we can carry on this performance tomorrow and we’ll look to finish the race with both cars in the points.”
Yuki Tsunoda qualified eighth for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix – Credit: Dan Mullan/Getty Images