Pierre Gasly has insisted he is still making progress in adapting to Red Bull’s RB15, having again been the slowest of Formula 1’s leading six drivers at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Gasly has endured a difficult start to his Red Bull career after replacing Daniel Ricciardo, trailing team-mate Max Verstappen throughout the course of the campaign so far.
Gasly failed to score in Australia, was only eighth in Bahrain, and finished an off-the-pace sixth in China, before retiring in Azerbaijan on a weekend in which he showed an upturn in form but was beset by incidents and setbacks.
In Spain Gasly qualified sixth and retained that position for much of the race, having narrowly fended off Kevin Magnussen in the wake of a failed bid to prise fifth from Charles Leclerc at the restart.
“I think it’s kind of getting better progressively, but still not exactly where I like,” Gasly said when asked by Motorsport Week of his feel with the car.
“I still have a few things on my side in terms of driving I can change to adapt a bit more to this car and I’ll keep working on, but still a few things to extract the potential with this car.
“I’m still a bit too aggressive with the car and [with] the package we have it’s a bit on the edge and as soon as you go over the grip you pay it quite hard.
“I think especially [on] the traction I have a few things I can change to improve that.”
Red Bull boss Christian Horner again threw his weight behind Gasly, commenting: “Pierre continues to get stronger.
“His race was compromised in the second half because he picked up some debris in the front wing but he drove a strong race.
“China was a turning point for him, he had a good weekend in Baku, he’s followed that up with a very solid weekend here.
“Obviously we want to get him in that fight with the cars ahead now, every weekend he’s made progress this year.”
