'Stars aligning' - Pierre Gasly hails Alpine for F1 record matched only by Lewis Hamilton

Pierre Gasly said "all the stars seem to align" for Alpine this season, after continuing his 100% streak of scoring points at Formula 1 weekends so far this season.

Of the 22 drivers on the F1 grid, only Lewis Hamilton has a perfect record of scoring on Sundays. But through his eighth-place finish in the Miami sprint race, before he was rolled out of the action on the Sunday, Gasly is the only other driver to have taken points from all seven rounds so far. 

Having suffered with brake difficulties in Barcelona, Gasly finished seventh after benefiting from the same Virtual Safety Car period that allowed Hamilton to leapfrog George Russell at the front of the field, leading the Frenchman to suggest, "All the stars seem to align for us."

Put to him by Crash.net that he and the Alpine team must be working at a high level to maintain this level of success, Gasly continued: “At the minute, I think we are doing – in terms of reliability, everything has been perfect since the start of the year. Touch wood, it is going to continue like that, and we are kind of capitalising on the retirements of other cars.

“But we’ve got to put ourselves on top of that midfield to make sure that we get the most out of it, and so far, that is what we have been doing the last couple of weekends. So I think the team can be pleased.

“On the flipside, I think the gap to the cars ahead has actually grown over the last few weekends, and we’ve definitely got to find a way to bring more performance, because at the moment, we’re just too far away from these guys.”

With the Austrian Grand Prix taking place next weekend, Gasly expects his brake troubles to be resolved, but he is cautious of the threat from rival midfield teams Racing Bulls and Audi, with both having displayed strong pace of late. 

Asked his thoughts ahead of the trip to the Red Bull Ring, Gasly said: “Looking at Barcelona, I was really not confident in the way I felt in the car all weekend, so I think we should be in a better place. Looking at the last – definitely in quali, RB was impressive, Audi seems to be good for a few weekends. Somehow, it is not clicking in the race.

“It’s not easy, but we just seem to do a slightly better job than them on Sundays. I think so far, we have managed to score points on every round. I’m hoping to continue that streak in Austria.”