Pierre Gasly says he had to “reset” his approach and references during practice for Formula 1’s Belgian Grand Prix, following his switch to Toro Rosso.
Gasly spent the first half of the campaign competing for Red Bull but the organisation instigated a driver swap during the summer break, with Gasly’s seat taken by Alexander Albon.
Gasly will complete the remainder of the season for Toro Rosso and had his first run in the STR14 during Friday practice at Spa-Francorchamps.
He finished the day in 17th place, two spots and two-tenths of a second behind team-mate Daniil Kvyat, albeit without the use of Honda’s Spec 4 power unit.
“In terms of procedures there are a couple of things which are similar to Red Bull so it’s not so many things that are new,” Gasly explained when asked by Motorsport Week about the adjustment.
“But it’s more resetting the reference that I have, or the references in terms of feeing and feedback from the other car, to that new car, which is different.
“[It’s] what I can do on braking, what I can do with the throttle, so I have something in mind from the last six months that I need to reset.
“I don’t want to be negative but I just [have to] downgrade this because I don’t have as much potential now so I need to reset all this feedback that I had in the first six months.”
When asked whether it was more challenging to adjust to a car with more or less downforce, Gasly replied: “I would say this way is a bit harder to go from a car with a bit more potential where you can attack a bit more to something which has a bit less grip but it’s my job to extract the maximum from it.
“I think today we didn’t have the Spec 4 in the car, I was running a lower spec, pretty happy with what we managed, but we have to find some more pace as we were not so competitive compared to Dany.”
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