Everything’s wrong
Two drivers in the points in Spain and Pierre Gasly in the top ten in the next round in Austria. The third consecutive race in Europe seemed to have good ingredients for a top-10 hat-trick for Alpine in Silverstonewhich however did not materialize. Not only because of the 16th place for Esteban Oconbut also for the Gasly’s race never started.
What happened?
Present during the reconnaissance lap, the Frenchman brought the car back to the pits before the start due to a technical problem, thus not taking part in the start: “We immediately noticed that something was wrong with the car as it was leaving the garage and we suspected a gearbox problem – has explained – We knew there could be a problem to start the race and, in the end, I came in straight after the formation lap and had to retire the car. With the grid penalty for the power unit change, it would have been a compromised weekend for my side of the garage. It’s a shame that we couldn’t take part in the race to at least try to fight for positions. With the weather so unstable, we could have had some opportunities, but today that wasn’t possible. We will continue to learn and we need to analyse what exactly happened to make sure we don’t have the same problem again. There’s a lot to do and we will use the time until Hungary to come back stronger.”
Wrong choices
A weekend to forget for Ocon too, out of any possibility of a comeback mainly due to mistakes made in choosing to change tires at the wrong time in a race conditioned by continuous weather changes, between dry track and rain. For the Frenchman, however, there may be some consolation in the next Hungarian GP, in that Hungaroring where he took his first and so far only victory in 2021: “The result completes what has been a difficult weekend for the team. – he specified – we made bad decisions all weekendwhich means we didn’t give ourselves a chance to fight. We knew the weather would be changeable, but we didn’t optimize our strategy with the choice of tires and as a result we fell behind. Overall, it was a weekend to forget and to recover from quickly in Budapest, which is a race and a track that I like to remember with great pleasure”.
#Gasly #race #nonstarter