Pierre Gasly will start the Azerbaijan Grand Prix from the back of the grid. The Williams driver had in fact managed to secure thirteenth place with an Alpine that here shows some of its greatest limitations, not only in terms of pure performance, especially in terms of difficulties in the traction phase due to excessive sliding, but also in terms of reliability.
However, the Frenchman will no longer start from the seventh row, because Gasly’s car failed post-session technical checks. FIA sensors detected that the Power Unit on his A524 during his final lap in Q2 “exceeded the instantaneous mass flow of fuel” by 100 kg/h, which effectively made his exclusion from qualifying and starting from the back of the grid inevitable.
When it comes to a breach of the technical regulations, as in this case, unless there are particular reasons it is difficult to escape disqualification, with Alpine and Gasly being no exception despite having attempted to provide their version of the facts.
Pierre Gasly, Alpine A524
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
In an attempt to explain what happened to the stewards in an attempt to avoid exclusion, the Alpine team engineers explained that the flow meter actually exceeded the 100 kg/h limit allowed by the regulation, but also that this infringement was caused by a technical problem that did not bring any advantage in terms of performance. This problem would have in fact led to exceeding the imposed limits, but only for a short period of time. Furthermore, the FIA itself agreed on the technical nature of the problem, finding itself in line with the explanation provided by the French team.
“The competitor [Alpine] demonstrated to the stewards that the technical failure resulted in a slower lap time and that no performance advantage was gained at that time,” reads the statement released by the FIA.
“Therefore, Alpine argues, this aspect should be taken into account as a mitigating factor. They also noted that the great rarity of violations of this article demonstrates that this is not part of their strategy,” the statement added, with Alpine wanting to emphasize how rare a violation of the flow meter values is, stressing that it was an external problem in good faith circumstances.
However, despite the explanations provided by Alpine, the stewards pointed out that Article 1.3.3 of the International Sporting Code is very strict on how to behave in such cases: “If a car is found not to comply with the applicable technical regulations, then it cannot be defended by saying that no performance advantage has been gained”.
Pierre Gasly, Alpine A524
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
Gasly’s disqualification is the latest setback for Alpine after a troubled weekend. In FP1, Ocon managed few laps due to an MGU-H issue that led to an engine change, followed by another fuel pump failure in FP3. In addition, in FP2, Gasly also suffered battery issues that prevented him from running consistently.
On the grid, Gasly will start from the back row alongside Guanyu Zhou, who will serve a penalty for replacing his ECU and battery, unless Alpine decides to make further changes and start directly from the pit lane.
“I am quite happy with the result of qualifying today. Obviously it is a shame that a small fuel flow infringement got us disqualified from the session. In any case, we expected it to be difficult to reach Q2, as the car was difficult to drive all weekend, as you could see from the practice times. The car was sliding a lot, it lacked grip at the rear, but we managed to improve the situation with some changes,” explained Gasly after the news of his disqualification.
Just a reprimand for Russell
The other case that had come to the attention of the stewards was a possible infringement by George Russell, who had been accused of not slowing down sufficiently under a yellow flag situation during Q1.
Analysing the situation, the stewards pointed out that this was a very similar case to that of Charles Leclerc in FP3 and that it would have been very difficult for Russell to notice the yellow flag being displayed when he was already approaching the corner.
For this reason, although the stewards believe it is essential to slow down under the yellow flag, at the same time they have granted mitigating circumstances to the Mercedes driver, who has thus only been given a reprimand. “In Leclerc’s decision, the stewards highlighted many mitigating factors. In this case, the Stewards believe that there are further mitigating factors. […] Therefore, in this limited set of circumstances, in particular the fact that the yellow flag could not be seen, the Stewards are ordering a driving reprimand rather than a more serious sanction,” the statement reads.
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