AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly says his excitement over racing in front of a home crowd this weekend is making him feel “a bit impatient” for proceedings to kick off.
The 26-year-old will be taking to the track for the first time in front of a home crowd as a Grand Prix winner following his glorious outing at Monza in 2020.
The Circuit Paul Ricard officials confirmed they will be allowing 15,000 spectators to attend daily, as things begin to return to some normal practice post-Covid – an announcement welcomed by the AlphaTauri driver.
“I was really hoping that fans would be there for my home race”, he said.
“It’s important to be able to share the weekend with them and it’s significant as it will be the first time I will race in front of a home crowd as a Grand Prix winner, after my victory in Monza last year.”
Gasly heads to round seven in 8th place on the Driver’s Standings following an impressive showing last time out in Baku, where he secured a place on the podium in P3, alongside Sebastian Vettel in P2 and Sergio Perez on the top step.
Speaking about experiencing another podium finish he said; “I feel my podium in Baku was well deserved as the whole weekend was excellent, everything was going well in free practice and I felt really comfortable in the car, the potential was there.
“We improved the car for Saturday, impressively quickest in FP3 and then in Qualifying it was the first time we were really fighting for the chance of pole position, ending up a couple of thousandths off the fastest time.”
The French driver will be hoping for some similar fate in France this weekend, after re-writing his experience of the Baku City Circuit, and admitted, “To be honest, I’ve not done anything special at Paul Ricard in the past.
“In my first F1 race here I collided with Ocon and had to retire on the opening lap and in 2019 it wasn’t a fantastic weekend and I ended up tenth.
“Actually, Baku was another track that had never gone well for me until this year and so I’m hoping we can follow the trend and change that this weekend also. ”
Proceedings kick off this Friday (June 18) from 10:30 am with Free Practice.
