Pierre Gasly declared that his struggling AlphaTauri team needs "a reset" as it "just can’t keep going like this".
After a strong 2021 season, the team finished sixth in the constructors' championship and came within a whisker of fifth, just losing out to Alpine. Fast-forward to now, though, and it's easy to see why the Frenchman is so frustrated.
AlphaTauri have been left floundering in eighth and look a long way off the pace of the rivals above them at times. The Austrian Grand Prix was a prime example of their woes, as neither Gasly nor Yuki Tsunoda ever looked like troubling the points at the Red Bull Ring.
That result marked the fourth race weekend in a row in which AlphaTauri have taken zero points back home with them. Their last round of car upgrades came at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in April, and since then it seems they have been left behind by their rivals.
Gasly, who qualified 10th but slipped back to finish 15th after a collision with Sebastian Vettel, declared the Austrian GP weekend as "a disaster". He said: "Apart from qualifying, but then we were nowhere, in terms of pace. I tried to do everything I can inside the car but at the moment there is just nothing to do, so I think we desperately need this upgrade on the car to be able to get any decent result.
"You look at Yuki, look at myself, even on the strategy we lost a position when we boxed. At the end of the day we just have no pace. You can do whatever you want, any strategy you want, with the speed we have at the moment [but it won't make a difference].
"[We] just can't keep going like this so we need to reset, and as I said we should have some new parts coming and hopefully they come for France and we can show a better pace there. It's not surprising if you don't have new parts, others are improving and you see at the start of the year we're fighting with the guys at the front and [now we're] finishing 20, 30 seconds behind."
Gasly will be hoping for a swift improvement in fortunes, otherwise he faces a bracing 18 months. The Frenchman has agreed to remain with AlphaTauri in 2023 after Red Bull closed the door to a potential return, despite his strong performances since returning to the sister team.
