Pierre Gasly hasn’t had much luck since announcing his departure to Alpine for 2023, and his poor run continued at this weekend’s United States GP. The Frenchman was knocked out in qualifying for the second time in a row due to issues with his brakes – in Suzuka his troubles meant he didn’t even get out of Q1.

He was left furious over the radio with his team, pointing out that the problem is becoming a recurring theme and how it is costing them dearly:

“Again, the same s***. For f*** sake. Why do we keep having this problem? Turn one, 11 – it’s the same s***,” Gasly said, irritated.

The Frenchman emphasised, when talking to media after the session, that this wasn’t the first that he or the team have experienced of the problem, citing he also had issues in Montreal and Suzuka – and believes it hurt its chances of getting through to the final part of qualifying on Saturday at COTA:

“So we glazed the front brakes – same as Japan and same as Canada. So clearly not ideal.

“Especially the second weekend in a row is something that should not happen. I’m just extremely disappointed because all weekend I felt good in the car and I do believe there was potential to be in the top 10. But then in these conditions, it’s just front locking in every corner and just can’t decelerate anywhere. So need to get on top of that.”

Gasly was puzzled at how the problem has occurred in a variety of weather conditions and track characteristics, costing the team several times, adding that it is something that “shouldn’t happen”:

“It’s happened three times with a new set of brakes. Canada was in wet conditions, so you can’t really apply a lot of brake energy into the brakes. Suzuka is a kind of low-energy track as well for the brakes. Here, it’s not really low-energy, so I’m not really sure.

“Talking with Daniel [Ricciardo], he had the same issue in FP3. But on our side it’s clearly something we need to get on top of because it cost us in Suzuka, it cost us again this weekend and on the season where we need to capitalise on every opportunity we can have, it just shouldn’t happen.”

Gasly explained his frustration is mainly from the work and effort that goes into a race weekend from his and the team’s side, just to be hampered by an “external problem” when it really matters in the qualifying hour. He said the team will “check” the issue with brake supplier Carbone Industrie:

“We try so hard to extract every hundredth out of the car. Everybody at the track, everybody at the factory, myself – you put so much work into it and when it’s the time to deliver, you get something, an external problem where it’s just screwing us.

“It can happen once, but when it’s second time in a row and third time this season, it just shouldn’t happen at that level. So it’s something to check with CI [Carbone Industrie], just something we’ve got to fix,” concluded Gasly.