Pierre Gasly has admitted Red Bull currently isn’t on the pace of Ferrari after crashing out of the second Formula 1 test on Thursday.
The Frenchman had what was second off of pre-season so far as he looked to complete a race simulation in the afternoon, slamming into the barrier at the high-speed Turn 9.
“I’m fine. A bit shaken,” Gasly said of his condition back in the paddock. “I made a mistake at Turn 9 and lost the car. It was a really big crash, one of the biggest I’ve had so far.
“I went slightly wider [into the corner] by about 50 centimetres and then lost it as I turned in.
“I’m feeling sorry for the guys, they’ve got a long night ahead of them, but the most important thing is Max is in the car for tomorrow and we’ll focus on the positives.”
With Thursday also the Toro Rosso graduate’s final day in the RB15 before the season opener in Australia, he reflected on what he considers a productive four days of running.
“We managed to get a lot of laps in these four days of testing,” Gasly noted. “We tested a lot of things and we’re looking a bit more on the performance side of things tomorrow.
“I think we learned a lot, but we need to go through all the data because we’ve got a lot of work to do before Melbourne, but overall we’re pretty pleased.”
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One admission that the 23-year-old did make, however, was Red Bull are currently unable to match the 1m16.231s that Charles Leclerc set on the C5 Pirelli tyres, with Gasly’s best almost eight-tenths down.
“Honestly, no. Ferrari are really fast and we need to just focus on our pace,” he concluded.
