At Alpine, there are many elements that have differentiated the performance of the drivers in this first part of the season, such as the fact that one of the two, in rotation, must use a heavier chassis. Up until Canada, Pierre Gasly had the lightest unit, while for the triptych Spain, Austria and Great Britain, the Frenchman had the heavier one at his disposal.
However, during the year there were also other elements that differentiated the performances between the two, such as some aspects that, on the surface, might seem secondary but which, in reality, have a significant impact on performance.
Speaking during the Silverstone weekend, in fact, Gasly looked back on his season, underlining on the one hand the growth of the team, which in the first part of the championship pushed constantly to bring new aerodynamic updates and reduce the mass of the single-seater, while on the other also the factors that allowed him to take a step forward on a personal level.
One of these elements is represented by the differential settings which, although still having a basis linked to certain characteristics of the car, are actually also linked to the preferences of the drivers and their driving styles. For this reason, even between teammates, it is not unusual for there to be differences in this type of settings: an aspect that can have a considerable impact on the stopwatch, also because this type of settings involves the three phases of the curve, namely entry, through and exit. Each driver has a personal base, which he can then fine-tune from the steering wheel.
The Frenchman explained that, after the Miami Grand Prix, he analysed the data with his engineers and realised that the mappings chosen were not giving the expected effects, which is why he then switched to the configuration used by Ocon. “I think there was definitely a step forward during the year. We found that, from the beginning of the season until Miami, there were a couple of things that were not right with my differential settings.”
“We then used the map from the other side of the pits and the car immediately behaved better,” Gasly said at Silverstone, also underlining how the problem was clearly not mechanical, but rather linked to the software code used on his car based on his preferences.
“There were a couple of things that didn’t make sense with the balance of the car at the start of the year. So I asked to try the map used on the other side of the garage and we immediately got better performance. It was something software related, difficult to pin down. But yes, at the beginning it cost us a bit in terms of performance, whereas now we have found much more consistency and we are aligned with the other side of the garage”.
Pierre Gasly’s steering wheel, Alpine A524
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
“This work is usually personal for each driver and is done with the engineers. We understood what went wrong. These things unfortunately happen, we managed to fix it and we decided to both go in the same direction”.
The switch to the settings used by Ocon has in fact allowed him to find better performance, albeit at the expense of a balance that is not exactly ideal for his preferences, which adds to some shortcomings still linked to certain peculiarities of the car that the engineers are trying to work on.
“This change played a major role in terms of the consistency of the car. In the following races, even though I didn’t have the ideal balance, the car was more consistent and I was able to find more consistency from the car.”
“I think what we are lacking at the moment is linked to the fact that the balance is not ideal everywhere, on some tracks like Barcelona I was reasonably satisfied, but we are lacking a bit of downforce at high speeds, which makes the tyres slide a bit too much, which then naturally overheat, and then pay the price in traction”.
Pierre Gasly, Alpine A524
Photo by: Erik Junius
“In general, stability is not yet ideal. We still have some understeer in some places that we are trying to solve, not to mention that we still suffer in traction,” added Gasly. The points cited by the French driver partly reflect those mentioned at the beginning of the year, especially regarding the problems in the traction phase, due to both mechanical and aerodynamic aspects.
At the start of the year, there was a lot of load missing from the rear and, to compensate, the drivers often had to use more aggressive set-ups towards the rear, thus putting the front in crisis. A concept exasperated on very specific tracks, such as Bahrain, which makes the management of the rear tyres a key element. However, also thanks to the updates introduced during the season, Gasly has greater confidence for the future, because the engineers already have an idea of which areas to intervene on, both in the short and medium-long term.
“What I like is that we have very clear ideas about what we lack. We also have good ideas about how to solve them. So I don’t think we will see everything this season. But we will see an evolution this season and I am quite confident that also for next year we have a good plan to substantially improve what we have.”
#Gasly #Competitiveness #regained #Ocons #setups
