Pierre Gasly described his Friday as the “best” of his Red Bull career but cautioned “not to get too excited” in the wake of an encouraging display at Silverstone.
Gasly has struggled for performance for much of the season and finished a lap down on victorious team-mate Max Verstappen in Austria, prompting boss Christian Horner to suggest he needed a reset.
Gasly cut a confident figure during Thursday’s media day and led the way in FP1 by almost half a second, before placing fifth in FP2, ahead of Verstappen.
“I’m happy because it was a really good day on our side and the best Friday of the season,” he said.
“We made some changes after Austria and we have a good plan on how I can improve things.
“There are still a few improvements I can make and my lap wasn’t perfect in FP2 so I can still extract a bit more, but overall I’m happy.
“It’s only Friday so we won’t get excited but we need to keep going in this direction.
“It will be important not to make any mistakes and perform tomorrow when it’s important, but the feeling I have today is a lot better.
“This is a high-speed track and with the wind today it made the conditions super tricky as the balance changes from one corner to another, but this is the same for everybody.”
Verstappen finished only seventh in the afternoon session as he failed to improve upon his initial benchmark once the field switched to Soft tyres.
“From my side, today was not so good and I didn’t find a good balance with the car in FP1 or FP2,” he said.
“I was sliding around a lot in the wind and struggling for rear grip, so we have a bit of work to do. Even though I’m not fully comfortable yet we’re not that far away and the times are pretty close which is a positive.”
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