Turkey GP - Pierre's Debrief

After marketing activations in Istanbul for Pierre and the Alpha Tauri team, he approaches the first sessions prepared and impatient to obtain good results.

Friday practice was dedicated to working on the car's setup and Pierre took 8th and 9th places.

FP1 1: 25.382 P8

FP2 1: 24.756 P9

Pierre: “Today, I didn't feel so good in the car, but we are leaving with two good positions, which is positive, and I think we can still give more tomorrow. I was not very happy with the balance of the car, as I had a lot of understeer, so this is something we need to work on. I believe this is something that a lot of pilots have gone through so we have to go out and analyze what we can do to improve that and hopefully we can continue to improve our performance in FP3.

Samedi matin, sous la pluie, Pierre signe tout simplement le meilleur temps et démontre une nouvelle fois ces capacités lorsque les conditions sont difficiles. 

FP3 1:30.447 P1

L’apres-midi, en qualif,  Pierre signe son retour en Q3 suite a la simple parenthèse Russe, et termine les qualifications en 5eme.

Q3 1:23.326 P5

Pierre: "I'm very happy to have qualified fifth today, and then to start 4th tomorrow after Lewis' penalty. The team has improved the car a lot since yesterday, as I was really struggling with understeer. It wasn't the easiest thing to see if these changes had worked this morning, as FP3 was wet, but as soon as we got to qualifying, I was competitive and that was really positive. I'm confident for tomorrow's race after the great progress we made with the car today, and I hope we can score some big points in the race.

It was a rainy qualifying day, and it didn't end there, more rain before the race meant that each car set off on intermediate tires. Pierre was sandwiched between two cars in the first corner and made contact with Fernando Alonso resulting in a 5 second penalty for his next pit stop.

All the teams have opted for a 1 pit-stop strategy. Despite his penalty and a forced pit stop of more than 7 seconds on lap 39, Pierre is reaping the benefits of his excellent first stint to join the race in sixth place.

Very disciplined driving in unpredictable weather conditions allowed Pierre to finish P6. His efforts and perseverance were rewarded with 8 points in the championship.

Pierre: “I'm really happy to be back in the top six, I think it's probably one of our best performances this season, especially in these difficult conditions. Finishing just 10 seconds from the podium, after a five second penalty, is really good for us. The Turn 1 incident was a bit unfortunate, I was sandwiched between Sergio and Fernando, we touched each other a bit but it was just enough to make Alonso go head to tail, so I want to say sorry to him. After that the pace was really strong and I'm happy with the car's performance this weekend, it feels good to have been quick again on Friday. "