Pierre Gasly admits that he prefers not to look back at any missed chances for points in 2022 in order to protect his mental health. It was a difficult season for Gasly and the AlphaTauri team, with the Red Bull sister team slipping from P6 in the 2021 Constructors' Championship to P9 in 2022. Gasly also went from ninth in the Drivers' standings in the previous year to 14th in the latter campaign. As well as struggling to regularly finish within the points, the Frenchman incurred several penalties and as such will enter 2023 – where he will make his debut for Alpine – with 10 penalty points. This puts him increasingly at risk of a race ban, given that a driver is handed this punishment should they reach 12 penalty points within a 12-month period. Despite the ups and downs during the year, Gasly does not want to spend too much time ruing missed opportunities.
Gasly: It's been an extremely difficult year
"If you look back over 22 races, you will find [missing] points [easily]," Gasly told media, including RacingNews365.com . "But I've learned [that], for our own mental health in F1, it's better not to look back at all the missing points, otherwise you're getting to depression very fast." However, Gasly acknowledges that things could have gone better for AlphaTauri in what proved to be a challenging year. "I think, for us, we could have done a better job on some occasions," he continued. "Clearly for us, it's been an extremely difficult year. Sometimes [we've made] mistakes on our side, sometimes [we've been] unlucky, but it's been a very challenging year." Gasly will depart the team after six years to partner Esteban Ocon at Alpine in 2023, while Nyck de Vries will fill his vacancy at AlphaTauri alongside the incumbent Yuki Tsunoda.
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