Pierre Gasly reflected on his first season with the French Formula One team
Alpine in 2023.
Pierre Gasly left the
Red Bull family after spending six seasons either in Red Bull or
AlphaTauri (Toro Rosso) to join Alpine and race alongside
Esteban Ocon for the 2023 season.
Gasly's new teammate has been with Alpine/ Renault for four years already, so the 27-year-old came into the team that had one already well-established driver, but he put up with the situation quite well.
While the Alpine F1 team suffered with lower performance in 2023, Gasly extracted the maximum out of the car and
finished 11th in the Drivers' Championship, four points ahead of his teammate.
On the other hand, when he was asked by the media to whether he was pleased with this season, the Frenchman responded:
"I must say it's tough to say you're pleased with the season you've had when you haven't scored that many points."
Gasly would have hoped for Alpine to be at least as competitive as the team was in 2022 when they achieved fourth place in the Constructors' Championship, but the performance of Alpine's cars decreased rather than increased compared to its rivals.
"It's been, objectively, slightly disappointing in terms of the overall performance we've shown, but personally, I'm definitely happy with the step I've made. "I came into a new team, there was a lot to learn, a lot to get used to."
On one hand, the 27-year-old couldn't completely show what he's got as his car wasn't fast enough. but on the other hand, he believes he did the best he could.
"I felt I managed to step in and just deliver, trying to get everything out of the car, weekend after weekend. I obviously wish we would be fighting for better positions."
The Frenchman also mentioned after the end of the season, he
wants to compete for the Grand Prix wins in 2024 very badly, but Alpine seemed far from Red Bull even at the end of the season. Do you think the French team could be the title challenger in 2024?