Pierre Gasly feels he needs better direction from his Red Bull Formula 1 team to help fix the struggles he is having with the handling of its RB15 2019 challenger.
Gasly has had a difficult start to his Red Bull career after crashing twice in pre-season testing and then during a frustrating opening weekend in Australia where he qualified 17th and finished 11th.
He earned his first points of 2019 last weekend in Bahrain with eighth place, but Gasly insists that there is much more to come once he is fully comfortable with the car.
His team mate Max Verstappen finished third and fourth in the opening two races.
“I need to find some direction with the set-up and see how the engineers can help me to make it feel more suitable to my driving,” Gasly told Autosport.
“And also see what I can improve in terms of driving style. I still feel like I cannot really do what I want inside the car.
“It’s just the fact that at the moment I just feel that I cannot really push, and the car doesn’t react as I would expect.
“There is more potential, but we need see how we can unlock it.”
While eighth in Bahrain was a step forward in results compared to Australia, Gasly was still not happy with how the Sakhir race unfolded.
“For sure I’m not satisfied,” he said. “I think there are some positives, but we are not where we want to be, and not where I want to be for sure.
“The feeling [in qualifying] was quite difficult with the car, and it was quite similar [in the race] as well.
“It’s time to work with the guys, see what I can change, and adapt my driving to this car, which is pretty difficult and unpredictable.”
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner believes a first points finish of the year would be a confidence boost for Gasly, and said that he had impressed in Bahrain despite scoring a relatively modest result.
“It was important for Pierre to have a strong race and he did that,” said Horner.
“I thought some of his overtaking, particularly on [Sergio] Perez, was very impressive. His pace in clear air, particularly in the second half of the race, was strong.
“He will have taken a lot of confidence out of that. Once he starts qualifying further up the grid, life will get a lot easier for him.
“He raced competitively, he raced hard, he had to overtake a few cars. He’s been competitive in the second half of the race.
“He can take a lot out of this weekend and carry that into future races.”
Horner also conceded that his team’s 2019 car is not easy to set-up, saying: “It’s a tricky car at the moment.
“Our operating window looks quite narrow and I think Max has coped with that extremely well, and it’s been harder for Pierre.[But] that will come, I’m sure.”