27-year-old driver admits 2023 F1 season was ‘very much below’ expectations

Follow us on Google Discover

Plenty of drivers will consider the 2023 season as one that fell well below expectations including Alpine’s new boy Pierre Gasly.

After finally leaving the Red Bull set-up last winter, he would have been very excited to join Alpine following their fourth-place finish in the Constructors’ Championship in 2022.

However, speaking to the official Formula 1 website, the 27-year-old admitted that it hadn’t been the year he expected despite several bright spots.

Unless your name was Max Verstappen, the 2023 Formula 1 season was likely more frustrating than anything.

The Dutchman monopolised the top step of the podium, allowing teammate Sergio Perez two victories and Carlos Sainz a single win in Singapore.

The gap between the rest of the grid closed up but some teams made more progress than others.

Gasly would have had expectations of consistently challenging for decent points and potentially even podiums in 2023.

However, the improvements made by Aston Martin and McLaren meant they were instead fighting to finish in the top ten most weeks.

The relationship between Gasly and teammate Esteban Ocon has never been brilliant and wouldn’t have been helped by their clash in Australia.

The pair both managed to record third-place finishes last season but they were the exception rather than the rule.

It’s up to the French team to find some improvements over the winter and improve on their ‘bulky’ chassis from last year.

2023 season below expectations for Gasly

Speaking about his maiden campaign with Alpine, Gasly said: “The last few weeks have been so busy. We had six races in eight weekends from Qatar to the Americas, Las Vegas and then the season finale in Abu Dhabi.

“It was a mixed end for us, some good races like Austin and Sao Paulo where we scored points and then some disappointing ones like Vegas and Abu Dhabi where we narrowly missed out for various reasons.

“Anyway, it means we ended my season in 11th place in the drivers’ championship with the team in sixth place in the constructors’ championship.

“For us, that is very much below the expectations we set ourselves and, of course, we wanted much more than that.

“We did record two podiums – three including my Sprint in Spa – something the team did not achieve in 2022, so that does constitute a mini victory to some extent.”

It will be interesting to see where Gasly’s expectations lie given Alpine’s mediocrity during 2023.

Much of that will come down to how quick the car is during testing in Bahrain in February but the goal has to be to leapfrog Aston Martin and potentially even McLaren.

That’s going to be very difficult though and they need to avoid the likes of Williams and AlphaTauri overtaking them otherwise Gasly and Ocon may look for drives elsewhere, especially with Audi set to join the grid shortly.