Disappointment struck French driver Pierre Gasly during the qualifying session for the 2025 Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix, as he failed to advance beyond Q1 and will therefore start the race from a lowly 17th position on the grid. Gasly had arrived in Budapest with the clear objective of securing a third consecutive points finish for the Alpine Formula 1 Team. However, those ambitions were derailed early in qualifying.
It was not an ideal afternoon for Alpine overall, with his teammate, rookie driver Franco Colapinto, managing only a slightly better performance by securing 14th place on the starting grid. Both drivers will have to stage a recovery in what is typically a challenging race for overtaking.
In his post-qualifying interviews, Pierre Gasly gave a detailed overview of the technical struggles he experienced throughout the weekend. He highlighted the ongoing issues Alpine has faced with the car’s balance and a general lack of grip, especially on a single-lap run, which significantly hindered his performance.
Pierre Gasly’s comments
Pierre Gasly explained that although the team made several setup changes throughout the free practice sessions, the car never truly reached the level of competitiveness he was aiming for. He admitted to being disappointed, noting that despite some progress being made since Friday, the result was still below expectations.
“Since yesterday we have tested many different things, and overall we have made some good progress,” explained Pierre Gasly to the media. “However, I wasn’t able to get the car into the window I needed. So I am a bit disappointed. During qualifying, I suffered from a lot of understeer, and I simply couldn’t get the car to rotate properly through the corners. It’s a shame to lose so much performance because of that.”
Gasly acknowledged that, although he tried to extract the maximum from his Alpine A524, it was not enough to secure a better grid position. “In the end, it was still a decent lap. If I had the chance to do it again, I would change a few things. I tried to push and give everything, but this time it just didn’t click. I didn’t feel that connection with the car.”
Looking ahead to Sunday’s Grand Prix, Pierre Gasly expressed hope that rain might provide him with an opportunity to recover ground. “For tomorrow, we are hoping for rain. If it stays dry, we’ll have to come up with something creative. We already know overtaking on this circuit is particularly difficult. We don’t appear to be especially competitive right now, but we’ll try something. We will discuss strategy this evening. It’s already clear that it will be on the edge between a one-stop or a two-stop race. We’ll see what we can do tomorrow.”
Pierre Gasly also commented on the differing approaches between him and his teammate Franco Colapinto throughout the weekend. “With Franco, we explored different directions. Some things worked, others didn’t. But overall, I think we worked well together. We were quite far off at the start of the weekend, and now the car is in a much better place than yesterday. The issue for me now is that there is still too much understeer, which means I can’t drive the way I prefer. We still have some straight-line speed, but the main limitation is the grip.”
Gasly concluded by saying that he was surprised by how much the car struggled at the start of the weekend and suspects that the team may have deviated from its usual setup approach. “Yesterday I was really surprised by how difficult things were. I believe we took a slightly different direction from what we’ve been doing lately. But for this particular circuit, what we had before just didn’t work. The car simply isn’t in the right place at the moment.”
Leave a Reply