Pierre Gasly Delivers For AlphaTauri

Pierre Gasly has put in a superb drive in Mexico, delivering a fourth-place finish for his AlphaTauri team, holding off both Ferrari’s in the process.

While there was elation for Gasly, there was disappointment for his teammate Yuki Tsunoda, who was knocked out of the race on the opening lap.

Pierre Gasly

“I’m extremely happy, P4 is such a great result and we couldn’t ask for a better weekend. Everything was under control with Charles behind, I was able to pull away nicely and manage the entire race well from fourth position. This weekend the car has really been there, we delivered yesterday in Quali and then again in the race today and finishing ahead of Ferrari always feels good as well. We’re equal on points with Alpine now, it’s my personal plan to deliver fifth in the Championship to Franz and the whole team – a nice and well deserved Christmas gift – so we’ll keep pushing for that. The way we’re currently working as a team I think we’ll be able to find our chances in the next few races.”

Yuki Tsunoda

“It’s such a shame, the car has been good here and, even if it wasn’t going to be easy, I think there could still have been an opportunity to score points today. It’s just unfortunate, the car next to me got sandwiched and then I was hit, these things happen in racing though. Overall, this race week has been really good, as the performance of the car has been strong, so it’s so disappointing not to be finishing the race.”

Franz Tost

“Big congratulations to Max, this victory means a big step towards the possibility of winning the Championship. It’s been wonderful coming back here to Mexico. There are so many Formula 1 fans and it’s really exciting to see all the grandstands full of passionate people. It’s been very interesting to see Checo, especially in the last laps, fighting while chasing Hamilton.

From our side, I must say that we had a very successful weekend. Pierre qualified yesterday in fifth position and the strategy was clear today: he had to survive in the first corner, keep the Ferraris behind and bring home P5. Due to Bottas’ spin on the first lap, he was able to move up to fourth place and he defended this up to the chequered flag. We know how difficult it is here in Mexico to manage the tyres and the brakes at this altitude, and Pierre was incredible during the entire race, behaving in a very professional way. Pierre and the team did a fantastic job across the whole weekend and the car showed a very good performance.https://a29c6fa32fabf3652f498c643fda885d.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

Yuki was a bit unfortunate today. He had to start from P17 because of the Power Unit change and then in the first corner Ocon crashed into him, so he couldn’t continue the race as the car was damaged too heavily. He showed great pace across the weekend and I’m looking forward to seeing how he performs now for the rest of the season. We hope we will not have any more penalties to take, meaning he should be in the top 10 and regularly scoring points in the remaining races. We will now get ready for Sao Paulo where I hope we can show a similar performance. We will have the Sprint Qualifying but having a fast car should definitely help.”