"It's going to be very tight in the midfield, even a bit closer than last year"

Pierre Gasly is looking forward to the start of the season at the Australian Grand Prix this weekend. The AlphaTauri driver was dropped from Red Bull Racing halfway through the 2019 season and is looking forward to trying to prove that they made the wrong decision. 

It was a successful winter testing but Gasly knows that a Gand Prix weekend is very different and will be the first opportunity to see how fast they really are. 

“Even though we had two fewer days of testing than in the past, I think overall we are quite well prepared for the first couple of races, as the Barcelona tests went well," Gasly said.

"We were able to get a good initial understanding of the AT01. We hardly had any interruption to our track time, apart from one morning when I spent a bit of time in the garage. Reliability was very good and the performance seems to be in the right area.

“It’s true that, because the regulations have been stable for a while now, reliability is generally better than before, but it is still a complicated process. At the moment we are satisfied with the level we have reached. We have improved the car, but we need to find some more performance to really be able to do what we want to do in 2020. We have made a step forward in terms of aero compared to last year, but I know we have more to come during the year.

"We will get a slightly clearer idea in Australia, because testing is just testing, and the Albert Park track is very different to Barcelona. It’s a street track, very bumpy with very low grip levels, so we might see another picture to the one that came out of winter testing. What is clear is that it is again going to be very tight in the midfield, even a bit closer than last year."

AlphaTauri will hope that they can build on their success in 2019 and play a part at the top end of the midfield battle.