United States Grand Prix – Gasly from hero to zero

Extremely disappointed with his team on Saturday after qualifying, during which he had been the victim of brake issues, Pierre Gasly remained relatively confident for the race on Sunday. The AlphaTauri driver knew that his car had the pace to fight for points.

Starting from the 11th position, the Frenchman took advantage of the confusion caused by the collision between Sainz and Russell during the first lap to gain several positions. At the beginning of the 2nd lap, the Normandy native had settled in 8th place, between Sergio Perez and Alexander Albon. Pierre Gasly especially fought against Lando Norris in the early stages of the race. On the 8th lap, the two men fought throughout the entire lap, constantly swapping the 8th position.

The team based in Faenza made an early pit stop for Gasly, on the 12th lap, to cover Valtteri Bottas’ strategy who had stopped a lap earlier. With the Finnish driver’s off-track excursion 6 laps later, the safety car was deployed. While this first safety car had no detrimental impact on the Normandy native’s race, the second one, caused by the collision between Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso, greatly penalized Gasly. Indeed, at the exit of the 11th corner, the driver of car number 10 left a gap considered too large by the FIA with the car in front of him. This resulted in a 5-second penalty for him.

Returning on the 33rd lap of the race to change his tires, the winner of the 2020 Italian Grand Prix was forced to wait 5 seconds in his pit box. It was eventually revealed that the AlphaTauri mechanics had not properly carried out Pierre Gasly’s penalty, resulting in a second penalty of 10 seconds for him.

Coming out in a distant 17th position, Gasly was doomed to finish without any points with this second penalty. He was also not helped by his overly conservative strategy. While all his midfield rivals were on medium tires, the Frenchman was on hard tires. Losing a lot of time behind the cars in front of him, the slowness of the AlphaTauri number 10 created a small traffic jam behind it. 14th and then 13th thanks to Fernando Alonso’s 30-second penalty, the native of Rouen finished far from the 8th position he held at the beginning of the race.

It was a frustrated Pierre Gasly who spoke about his United States Grand Prix: “For now, I don’t know what happened. I just know that we received 2 or 3 penalties. I won’t contradict the FIA because they always have the final say. Honestly, I was very surprised to receive these penalties, but I must have made a mistake. I was trying to follow the car in front of me and warm up my tires and brakes as usual, but I will have to discuss it with the team. It’s clear that today it cost us points when we were having a good race until then.”