Gasly cautious about AlphaTauri’s ‘surprising pace’ at F1 Italian GP

Pierre Gasly has urged AlphaTauri not to get carried away despite its ‘surprising’ performance on what he described as the team’s “best Friday by far” of the 2020 Formula 1 season at Monza.

Following on from his brilliant eighth place finish in Belgium last weekend, Gasly ended Friday practice for the Italian Grand Prix fourth, adding to his P6 effort from the morning session.

AlphaTauri teammate Daniil Kvyat joined the Frenchman inside the top 10 in both sessions as the Faenza squad underlined its recent potential by finishing Friday as the highest-placed Italian team on home soil.

Gasly played down a late suspension issue on his AT01 which brought his FP2 running to a premature close, but stressed AlphaTauri should “stay very careful” about its chances as he expects changes to the order come qualifying.

“I think it has been the best Friday, by far, we’ve had since the start of the season,” Gasly said after second practice at Monza on Friday.

“I think we were 6th this morning and 4th this afternoon, and I must say the feeling in the car was good. I could push, I managed to some good laps in, I was feeling quite comfortable, so it was a positive Friday for us.

“Unfortunately, we had a small issue with a damper in the long run, so we had to stop before the end. Generally speaking, we’re pretty happy.”

Asked where he thinks AlphaTauri’s performance has come from, Gasly replied: “Actually, we’ve got no idea! Even we are surprised to see ourselves up there.

“I think the set-up we had for Monza, with very low downforce, seems to work quite well but then, I think we can still improve for tomorrow.

“I think there will be some surprises… Especially with the new engine modes and what we can use in qualifying and the race, so we still need to be careful.

“I think we should still stay quite careful,” he added. “For sure we had a very good Friday, so it’s normal we’re pretty confident for tomorrow.

“But it’s so tight here, especially with the tows and in qualifying it will be so important to get them right. We saw how messy it already was only for FP2, nobody wanted to go first, so I guess tomorrow is going to be even worse.

“I think it’s going to be tricky, but for Sunday I am quite confident that we can have an exciting race again.”