Pierre Gasly was again one of the stars of Qualifying on Friday in São Paulo, with the Frenchman ending the best of the rest behind the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team and Red Bull Racing drivers for a second consecutive weekend.
The Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda driver did not have a great free practice session at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace, but he continued to improve his AT-02 throughout Qualifying, and ended up fifth on the grid, 0.843 seconds behind pacesetter Lewis Hamilton.
Gasly says it is important for AlphaTauri to maintain their strong form as they continue to fight the Alpine F1 Team for fifth place in the Constructors’ Championship, with the two teams equal on points with four races of the season remaining.
“Today I’m really, really happy,” said Gasly. “FP1 was quite difficult for me and I struggled a little bit in Quali too, but every time I went out I managed to find a little bit more, playing with everything inside of the car and making small improvements each time we ran.
“I managed to put it all together when it counted and I think it was a really incredible lap in Q3 today, so I’m really pleased with that. It’s really amazing for us to be Qualifying right behind Mercedes and Red Bull, it’s a critical moment in the Championship and the team did a fantastic job today.
“Of course, it’s only Friday so we’ve got two more days, it’s going to be pretty intense, but we’ve put ourselves in the best place possible.”
“I think I managed to get up to speed quite quickly” – Yuki Tsunoda
Team-mate Yuki Tsunoda could only manage thirteenth on the grid, but the Japanese racer will take comfort from the fact he only had an hour of free practice to learn the track ahead of Qualifying.
Tsunoda felt he learned as much as he could in the limited time and was disappointed not to join Gasly in Q3, and he is hoping to make gains in Saturday’s Sprint Qualifying race in order to start the main race on Sunday higher up the field so he can potentially fight for points.
“This is another new track for me, so practice was really important this morning and I think I managed to get up to speed quite quickly, which was good,” said Tsunoda. “The car feels good round this track, so it’s a shame I couldn’t make it through to Q3 today.
“I think Sprint Qualifying tomorrow is going to be a bit tricky starting from this position, but I’ll try to make my way forward so I can start Sunday’s race in a stronger place.”
Yuki Tsunoda was only thirteenth in Qualifying in Brazil – Credit: Lars Baron/Getty Images