Gasly: Overweight AlphaTauri ‘was like running with a backpack’

Pierre Gasly says an overweight car was AlphaTauri’s biggest issue through 2022, revealing it was unable to get down to the limit all season.

AlphaTauri claimed a podium finish in each of the last three seasons in Formula 1, including a shock victory for Gasly in 2020, but it slumped down the pecking order in 2022.

It started with a string of points, peaking with Gasly’s fifth in Azerbaijan, but finished in the top 10 just four times in the last 14 grands prix.

AlphaTauri went on to finish ninth in the Constructors’ Championship, ahead only of Williams.

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“It was a tricky year, there were obviously high expectations coming from last season, there was great momentum and a change of regulation, so my hopes to have the best year for AlphaTauri were never as high as they were at the start of the season,” said Gasly, who will move to Alpine in 2023.

“I thought we had our chance – [the] budget cap [as well] – we had no reason not to outperform all the midfield teams.

“We didn’t start the year in the best shape but I knew it would be a race of development through the year, you have to put the development on the car race after race but unfortunately we didn’t manage to do that.

“I think the core of the car isn’t bad, but we’ve just been massively overweight all season, and just on that it cost us a lot. I do believe that was the main issue this season. Clearly we didn’t perform anywhere near what we would have liked.”

Several teams struggled to get their 2022-spec cars down to Formula 1’s minimum weight limit early on but Gasly explained the issues it caused AlphaTauri through the season.

“We’ve been like 12-13kg overweight the whole season and we didn’t manage to cut this down, at all, and [we are] talking three-and-a-half tenths per lap,” Gasly said.

“And the number of times we missed Q3 by a tenth or two, it was like 10 times, and to carry all that weight into the race is like running with a backpack.

“You start 13-14kg overweight, you carry it the whole race – you have more degradation, you have slower performance, it’s like a snowball effect. I think the car has potential, and is definitely not bad, but we’ve just been struggling with that for the majority of the season.”