Gasly insists Red Bull are in a strong place

Red Bull driver Pierre Gasly feels the team are in a strong place and can be happy despite the lack of quick lap times during the first week of Formula 1 testing in Barcelona.

Gasly completed a total of 238 laps for the team during his time in the car, whilst teammate Max Verstappen completed one less in 237.

Both of the drivers focused on longer runs during their time rather than speed in single-lap runs, leaving them third bottom on the combined timesheet for fastest lap times.

Gasly said (quoted by Crash.net): “It was a really productive day, we managed 146 laps, a lot of long runs, a lot of tests done for the team.

“The overall feeling for the car is really good even if it doesn’t show it on the lap times – we are testing and we know what we’re doing so I’m pretty happy and there a lot more tests coming next week.

“I managed to do a lot of laps in the car which is important to me, get used to it and get comfortable as well with my new engineer and do some productive work for the team.

“So far we managed this good work and to analyse all the data from this week, stayed focused, a lot more work for next week and try to be as ready as possible for Melbourne.”
 
The Red Bull team are looking to focus more on the performance side of things when the second test comes around next week again in Barcelona, having had no issues of reliability with the new Honda engine inside the car.

Head of race engineering, Guillaume Rocquelin, said: “We spent much of the [final] day on the C3 tyre and focused on longer runs but it wasn’t just about piling on the miles.

“There was plenty going on in the background that will aid development of the car.

“Overall we’ve had a very successful first test. We’ve been able to tick off all the items on the run plans and this test has thrown up a few interesting things that we can factor into development.

“We’ve had great support from the factory too, as shown with the rear wing we ran yesterday, so it’s been a very consistent and productive week. We got to where wanted to be and beyond.”