Pierre Gasly managed to sign another noteworthy race at the wheel of the AlphaTauri AT02 by taking sixth place at the 2021 Formula 1 Turkish Grand Prix.
The French driver, thanks to an excellent race pace on a wet and then wet track, finished just a few tenths from the fifth place occupied by Lewis Hamilton. This made him move up to ninth place in the World Drivers’ classification, reaching 74 points.
Yet the Frenchman’s race started immediately uphill. Coming out of the first corner, after the start, Gasly found himself closed on both sides. Inside – after the first left-hand corner – was Sergio Perez’s Red Bull RB16B. Outside, on the other hand, there is Fernando Alonso’s Alpine.
At that point Gasly, to try to avoid contact with the Mexican, expanded, hitting the Asturian’s Alpine. At that point Alonso spun and resumed the race from the bottom.
The race direction of the Turkish GP immediately noticed what happened after the first corner and brought it to the attention of the race marshals. These, once acquired the videos available, have decided to penalize the pilot of the AlphaTauri.
At the end of the race, the winner of the 2020 Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix gave his own version of what happened: “There was a contact but I didn’t see the images. For me it was a fight with Perez, who was at ‘inside, and Alonso was outside. There was simply no space and there was contact. “
“I got a penalty and I don’t know if that’s right. I saw Sergio and Fernando. I just tried to go where I could, given the situation. I know very well that it’s not an ideal situation to be in so many cars close at one point. such”.
At the end of the grand prix, the race director Michael Masi explained the penalty imposed by the race marshals on Pierre Gasly, because this was the subject of debate for the modalities in which the contact between the AT02 number 10 of the transalpine and the ‘Alpine by Fernando Alonso.
“After taking a look at things, if we go back to the beginning of the year and if you remember, before the first events and following the discussions with the riders and teams we said we would let it go more, in general. first lap there had been an accident clearly caused by a driver, then the maneuver would have been sanctioned with a penalty. At this point, the stewards determined that Pierre was completely guilty of the accident on the first lap in Turkey. And as a result, he has received a penalty of 5 seconds “.
Masi then explained the focal point of what happened, that is the position of Sergio Perez within the AlphaTauri. This was judged by the commissioners as irrelevant. A fundamental aspect, because in fact he gave all responsibility for what happened to Gasly who, in this way, was penalized by 5 seconds.
“Perez’s position in the incident was a factor that led the commissioners to spend more time than expected to make a decision. He was on the inside and his position was assessed. Then once the footage cleared up. his influence on what happened, it was pretty clear that Gasly was responsible. That’s why he was given a 5 second penalty, “concluded Masi.