Gasly entered his home Grand Prix weekend hoping to make a step forward after AlphaTauri launched their long-awaited upgrade package in practice on Friday.
Gasly was comfortably in the top 10 in FP1 and FP2, and noted he felt more confident in the car with the updates, to then qualify a modest 16th at Paul Ricard on Saturday.
Speaking after qualifying, Gasly explained that he had a completely different feel in the AlphaTauri AT03 car between FP2 and FP3, leaving him struggling for pace in qualifying.
“I’m extremely disappointed because yesterday was really promising,” Gasly said after qualifying.
“I don’t know, this morning I just had a completely different feeling in the car – I had a lot more trouble in FP3, I slipped a lot and I couldn’t put in the same performance.
“Qualifying was the same. Clean laps, just a lot of slide in all the low speed corners, no traction and I don’t really understand how we lost so much compared to yesterday.
Asked if there had been any setup adjustments between Friday and Saturday, Gasly replied: “A little, but I’d be surprised if that would explain why we lost five tenths overnight.”
Yuki Tsunoda, Alpha Tauri AT03
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
Gasly reported a problem with his left rear tire on his final qualifying lap which he thought was a puncture, but said he still needed to check with the team why the car felt so bad.
“At the moment there are a lot of question marks,” Gasly said.
“I just got out of the car, I have to sit down with them and go over everything and try to figure out why we lost so much performance compared to yesterday.
“Yesterday I said it was great, the car reacted well. Every lap it was really easy to deliver the lap time. [But] it was like a different car.
“I don’t want to jump to big conclusions now. but it is clear that we have to go through a lot to understand exactly what happened.
Teammate Yuki Tsunoda was able to reach Q3 for the first time since the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in early June, qualifying eighth after benefiting from a set-up change from practice.
“I’m pretty happy with what I did today, especially since FP2, I had a bit of a hard time adapting there,” Tsunoda said.
“We made a good set-up change massively overnight, and it’s working well today. So far it’s going well, to finish eighth for tomorrow [Sunday]so i hope it works well.
“So far, in medium and high speed [corners], we have taken an important step compared to Austria, which is really essential for tire management. So I’m optimistic for tomorrow and I think we can have a good race.
