There is a lot of anger in Pierre Gasly, who finishes qualifying in Sochi in twelfth position. The Frenchman had concluded the second free practice session in third position, showing the great potential of the AT02 on the Olympic circuit. A good placing in qualifying would therefore have laid the foundations for an equally good result in the race, but unfortunately Pierre was forced to get off his AlphaTauri at the end of Q2. Only twelfth was Gasly, who expressed his anger after qualifying: Pierre in fact asked, during Q2, to return to the pits to fit a new set of intermediates, but the team preferred to leave him on the track with a set that was now at its limit. And so the Frenchman was unable to get into Q3, where he would certainly have achieved a good placing with the sticks.
"I don't have much to say right now. I think we had the pace to be able to easily get to Q3, so I'm obviously frustrated – explained Pierre – in these conditions, in Q1 I was really fast and I felt comfortable with the car, I was able to push straight away. In Q2, however, I was out with only one set of tires which were too worn at the end. I think it was a big mistake on our part, but we will talk about it with the team to better understand what happened. Not getting through to Q3 was a missed opportunity, but now we need to look forward and understand what we can do to make up for lost ground".