Pierre Gasly says that a successful correlation with simulations will be a more important outcome from the Alpine Formula 1 team’s Austin update package than any gain in performance.
The Enstone team has brought a significant batch of updates to COTA, but only for Gasly’s car initially, leaving Ocon with the older spec.
Gasly says that it’s important for the team to prove to itself that it can translate what the wind tunnel and CFD say to the track as it pushes ahead with a development programme for the 2025 car.
Alpine has already committed to making major changes for next season when most teams are likely to carry over much of their current package.
“It’s a few new bits and pieces, new parts on the car, which have been worked on for over the past few weeks and months,” said Gasly when asked by formu1a.uno about the updates.
“We’re quite confident it’s going to bring the performance we expect. And we’ve had to wait for these parts. Hopefully, it can put us in a better position, because obviously the last few races have been pretty tough on our side.”
Gasly agreed that preparing for 2025 is the main focus for Alpine rather than short-term gains.
“That’s the main target I see personally,” he said. “It’s more about the progress and development we’re going to see over the last six races. I’m not going to say I want us in Abu Dhabi to be fighting for 10th, ninth or 12th, it’s kind of irrelevant.
“But really [we want] to see the correlation between our tools and the stuff we’re working on delivering at the track, which will give us the confidence on next year’s package and the future. So that’s the main, I would say, objective until the end of the year.”
Expanding on the theme he said: “I think it’s still important this weekend to just see us moving forward in terms of performance, in terms of overall potential on the car. I think we are all aware of the situation.
“We all agreed as a team that whether we finish eighth in the championship or ninth in the championship, it’s not going to change anything.
“But the key thing here is the understanding and the belief that we can have in all the processes we’ve put in place over the last few months, and the work we’ve been doing into developing and finding performance on that package.
“Next year’s car is going to be very different, but we’re still learning, and everything we’re learning today will be useful for next year, and that’s why regardless of where we’re going to finish, it’s important that we do make these steps forward which and find that correlation.”
Gasly was given the updates this weekend as there are only two sets, leaving him with spares should they be needed.
“It was decided same as China earlier this year when we brought new parts, and Esteban had the new package and kept the spare parts for his car,” said Gasly. “And it’s the same this weekend, but the other way around.
“So it’s followed what we said back then, Esteban Ocon will get the first package, I’ll get the other one when it comes. So I’ll be the only one running it.
“So it’s my package and a spare, because obviously if you go into the weekend and lose any parts, then you’ll have to revert.”
Ocon meanwhile expects to have the new parts on his Alpine in Mexico next weekend.
“It’s been obviously a difficult run of races with the performance of the car,” he said. “That is very clear. Unfortunately, we maximised the potential in Singapore, but that wasn’t enough for us to be points scorers.
“Pierre will have upgrades. I will run the old car this weekend, and we should hopefully have the upgrades for the next races onwards.
“So we’re excited to see what that’s going to bring to the performance of the team, and hopefully it will be a better position for us to end this season.”
