Eifel Grand Prix – Gasly solid, points for Grosjean, Ocon’s disappointment

Pierre Gasly 6th (12th at the start, 6th at the finish)

Le Normand was satisfied with his qualification since starting 12th just ahead of his garage neighbor, Daniil Kvyat, he would be able to take advantage of starting on medium tires. A strategic advantage that Pierre Gasly knows well after having been on the receiving end of it many times this season.

Losing two positions at the start to Antonio Giovinazzi and Kevin Magnussen, who had the advantage of starting on soft tires. Pierre Gasly fought a good part of his first stint with the Dane before running his race somewhat alone thanks to his alternative strategy.

Finally, it was with his childhood friend Charles Leclerc that the AlphaTauri driver battled during his second stint. Benefiting from the Safety Car to catch up with the pack, the pace of Sainz’s McLaren was too fast and Gasly fell short by a few tenths of the 5th place, still managing to conclude a very successful weekend with another points finish this season.

« I really had a lot of fun »

« It was really a great race, I am very happy. We had quite a few difficulties yesterday during FP3 and qualifying. We knew that not making it into Q3 would allow us to choose the strategy. I felt very good with the car, we had some great battles, so honestly, I had a lot of fun and I’m happy to have been able to secure this 6th place. »

Romain Grosjean (16th at the start, 9th at the finish)

The Frenchman must have been frustrated during the qualifications. The Haas had the potential to move on to Q2, as Kevin Magnussen proved. Unfortunately, Romain Grosjean couldn’t keep up with his teammate and was eliminated in Q1. This was a regrettable elimination considering that, unlike many drivers, he benefitted from having already driven on the track.

At the start of the race, he lost 4 positions, ending up last. The Haas driver feared that his finger was broken due to a stone hitting it. Once again, the Franco-Swiss driver was battling only with the Williams and the Alfa Romeo cars, but unlike other weekends, the end of his race was going to be better than the start.

Taking advantage of the retirements of the drivers ahead of him, Grosjean climbed to 9th position thanks also to a few overtakes. Not stopping under the Safety Car, he was briefly in 7th but could do nothing against the fresh soft tires of his opponents. It’s 9th place at the end for Romain Grosjean, who is no longer in last place in the championship thanks to his two small points, surely very precious for Haas and for the rest of his career in Formula 1.

It feels good. We’ve felt it coming for some time, we’ve been doing good work but things just weren’t aligning for us, but now after the challenging start on medium tires, things are working out quite well for us.

I’m managing to keep a great pace with the tires, then we switch to a one-stop strategy. We didn’t think we’d use the hard tires today, but we ended up using them and the car is handling well.

Esteban Ocon DNF (7th at start, retired due to hydraulic issue)

Qualified in 7th position on Saturday, the French driver was once again beaten by his teammate in the qualifying session, but he wasn’t far off the Australian’s time, which is encouraging for the rest of his season.

Esteban Ocon lost two positions at the start to Sergio Perez’s Racing Point and Lando Norris’s McLaren. In such a tight pack and on a circuit where overtaking is difficult, grid positions were crucial.

Finally, the Renault with number 31 was forced to retire on the 23rd lap. What a shame considering the pace the French team had this weekend, highlighted by Daniel Ricciardo’s podium finish at the end of the race.