Gasly was disorganized in Qatar
Candidate for points until mid-race, track limit overruns turned Gasly's race into a nightmare.
Starting 7th, no one could predict such a debacle on the part of the French driver. Ninth at the end of the sprint race, the points seemed obvious. Carlos Sainz’s withdrawal even before the race began confirmed his hopes.
Pierre Gasly had the misfortune of starting on the left side of the track. During the tangle between Lewis Hamilton and George Russell he remained blocked on the outside of turn 1, blocked by the cars in front of him who wanted to avoid becoming collateral victims of the silver arrows while Esteban Ocon and Lando Norris dove inside to overtake him.
On the restart of the race, on the fifth lap, he was able to defend rigorously against Yuki Tsunoda who was particularly fast at the start of the race. He puffed out his chest again on the 22nd lap, this time against Russell’s Mercedes. Not hesitating to push the Briton wide in turn 1, a sign indicating a somewhat frustrated driver in his cockpit, the blue wall finally collapsed one lap later.
From there, events only worsened the race for the Norman. During his second pit stop, a long 4-second stop prevented him from overtaking his teammate, then on the 30th lap, he received his first warning for exceeding track limits. The first 5-second penalty came 14 laps later. On the 52nd race lap, the FIA asked him to give up the 9th position to Lance Stroll after overtaking him off the asphalt. This allowed Perez, who was tucked behind the Canadian, to also take advantage.
Managing to overtake the Mexican again on the 55th lap, a second 5-second penalty ended any chance of finishing in the points despite crossing the finish line in 10th position. He eventually finished 12th when Bottas’ 8th position would have been easily achievable without these small blunders. All in all a messy race for the Frenchman who will have a mission to come back more focused in Las Vegas.
« It was a physically challenging race, it was very hot. It wasn’t the easiest for everyone but it wasn’t the hardest today. It was a complicated race because we had a problem with the engine all throughout the race, the battery had many more cut-outs than expected and I think that afterwards, I tried to do a lot to compensate for this »
