Pierre Gasly: “I don’t think we could really hope for much better and it’s 12 important points”

Pierre Gasly had an excellent Dutch Grand Prix weekend, with the Frenchman qualifying and finishing fourth at the Circuit Zandvoort, behind only Max Verstappen and the two Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team drivers.

The Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda driver had a superb weekend amid the sand dunes in The Netherlands, with the Frenchman qualifying on the second row on Saturday before converting that into fourth on Sunday, finishing well clear of the chasing pack, which was led by Scuderia Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

Gasly says the team did an amazing job all weekend long at Zandvoort and they have been rewarded with twelve points towards the Constructors’ Championship as they bid to finish fifth in 2021.

“P4 is an amazing result today, I don’t think we could really hope for much better and it’s 12 important points for us,” said Gasly.  “I really enjoyed all 72 laps here in Zandvoort, it’s a fantastic track.

“I had fun today, I’m really pleased with everything, the car is really fast and I managed to get it set-up just the way I wanted.

“The team did a fantastic job throughout the weekend and today we were flying!”

The Formula 1 season moves on quickly with the return to the Autodromo Nazionale Monza this coming weekend, with Gasly excited to return to the scene of his unexpected victory of 2020.

“I’m obviously very excited to get back to Monza after last year and obviously the expectations are very high,” said Gasly.  “We’ve clearly maximised our package this weekend, so it’ll be interesting to see how it performs next weekend in Italy.”

“Hopefully we can put it all together next week” – Yuki Tsunoda

Team-mate Yuki Tsunoda was one of only two retirements during the race, with the Japanese racer being forced to call it a day with an engine-related issue on his AT-02.

Tsunoda admits it would have been hard to challenge for points on Sunday due to the difficulty in overtaking at Zandvoort, so he is bidding to turn his form around by returning to the top ten in this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix, a circuit where he has previous experience having raced there in FIA Formula 2 last year.

“Today’s result is disappointing of course, we saw an issue on the PU data and unfortunately had to retire the car,” said Tsunoda.  “Up until that point the race was going quite well and the pace of the car was there, but it was hard to overtake.

“I’ve got to look forward to Monza now, I have some experience on that circuit which is good. I’m going to take the same approach as this week, slowly building up the pace and hopefully we can put it all together next week.”

Yuki Tsunoda retired from the Dutch Grand Prix with an engine issue – Credit: Lars Baron/Getty Images