Pierre Gasly described fourth place as a “small win” for AlphaTauri as he finished as the lead midfield car at the Dutch Grand Prix.
Gasly put in a strong, if slightly anonymous, drive to fourth place behind race winner Max Verstappen and the two Mercedes drivers.
It marks his best result of the season since his third place in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, whilst also marking his third consecutive points finish after fifth in Hungary and sixth in Belgium.
“P4 for us is a small win, for AlphaTauri,” said Gasly afterwards. “Finishing in front of both Ferraris, both McLarens and right behind the three cars of the top teams. It’s been a fantastic performance, strong qualifying, very good start, very good pace through all the race and a perfect weekend for us.”
The highlight of the Frenchman’s drive to fourth came when he wrestled his AlphaTauri AT02 round the outside of Fernando Alonso’s Alpine. Gasly had just made his pitstop and came out behind Alonso, who was yet to make a stop of his own.
To prevent the risk of an overcut by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, Gasly explained that he decided to attack Alonso going into turn one.
“I knew I could not wait and wasted my time because Charles was out a bit longer. I didn’t want him to overcut. At the same time I knew Fernando fighting us in the championship will make my life quite hard.”
“But the previous lap I was so strong into turn one, I saw I gained so much time and almost tried something without really wanting to do it and that next lap I was really far, just sort of surprised him.”
“I don’t think he expected me to go around the outside there. So I just thought okay, I’ll give it a shot, try to surprise [him] and yeah, I think it was a nice one. I really enjoyed it and I don’t think he expected me to go there.”
“He’s a tough one to fight and I could not come with just a normal overtake and just go on the inside because he would have defended.”
“So I think that was a nice move and it allowed me to get some free air after that and open the gap on Charles so it was important to make it up. “
Next weekend, Gasly returns to the site of his maiden Formula One victory at Monza, one year after his shock win in the Italian Grand Prix.
Speaking of the weekend ahead, Gasly said he hopes to continue his recent run of form but will not be aiming to emulate his upset from last year.
“Well, what I can expect is again to fight with the Ferraris and the McLaren and these guys and hopefully it can be an eventful race. We know obviously what’s happened last year and it’s gonna feel quite special to go back there one year after the win.”
“At the same time, even if we try, we go with the mentality of doing our best, we can’t go there and say okay, we need to win otherwise it’s going to be a disappointment. Obviously that would not be the right approach.”
“We’ll try our best. The last three races we finished P5, P6, P4 so we are in very good form and I hope we can continue that.”
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