Red Bull evolution starting to suit Gasly

Pierre Gasly believes the direction in which Red Bull is developing its car is starting to suit him better as he continues to recover from a tough start to the season.

After failing to reach Q3 in each of the first two qualifying sessions this year, Gasly has now qualified in the top six in two of the past three races; the other being an enforced start from the pit lane in Azerbaijan. After finishing sixth in Barcelona and then enjoying a productive day of testing on Tuesday, Gasly says the updates being brought to the car are helping while he adapts his driving style.

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“I think for sure it's going better, and the car and myself are going a bit more in the same direction,” Gasly said. “Still, there is still more to come. I know it, and I'm trying to change a bit my driving to suit the car better, and I think also the team is, with the evolution, it's coming a bit towards me as well, so I'm sure it will get better with more race.

“I think looking at Mercedes' pace objectively, they made a massive step and I think they are a lot faster, quite a bit faster than Ferrari and us, but let's see what we can do. I think with the direction we've found we're going to be able to extract a bit more from the package we have, and we know Monaco is a really different track compared to Barcelona. Canada, as well. So hopefully I can be a bit more in the mix, and fighting a bit further up the grid.”

Gasly says it is not specifically the front nor the rear that he wants to gain confidence with, and that overall predictability from the car will help him find more lap time.

“It's just the consistency you get from it and how predictable it is," he said. "With the sort of aggressive driving I had, for the rear was quite aggressive and sometimes I could not take it with the traction we had. So now I am changing a little bit the approach, which is going a bit more towards the car, and with the evolution we are bringing it's also going in that way.

“There is still more to come, especially with the degradation and all those things. In the race, as soon as you overheat the tires, you pay quite a lot, so I know there's still more performance to come, but both going in the same direction, so the performance will improve.”