Penalties threaten Pierre Gasly
After his barbecue during the Bahrain Grand Prix, Pierre Gasly may very well have some parts to change on the AT03, which AlphaTauri dreads.
At the end of the race, French driver Pierre Gasly was forced to retire. The AlphaTauri driver had to quickly exit his car, which caught fire, giving the drivers an opportunity to discover the brand-new safety car developed by Mercedes. While Gasly escaped unscathed, the same cannot be said for the car, as some parts may need to be replaced sooner than expected for the team.
Firstly, AlphaTauri will have to proceed with a chassis change. Furthermore, the fear of an early engine change weighs on everyone’s minds. The problem is that teams are limited to three engines this season, otherwise they will be penalized.
AlphaTauri has a lot on their plate, considering that nobody predicted the incident that the Frenchman was a victim of, neither the driver nor the engineers. “I literally had no warning signs,” Gasly recounted. “Which is quite strange. I’m not really sure what happened, the car stopped after the first corner and I parked it. Then it turned into a barbecue at the back… We were very confident after the tests, we didn’t have any concerns, but this sport keeps you grounded, you can never be too confident. I just hope the engine isn’t dead, but we’ll manage.”
Furthermore, Gasly was rather well placed in the middle of the pack, which could have brought valuable points to the team.
Which elements are damaged?
The technical director of AlphaTauri, Jody Egginton, confirmed the French driver’s version. The car was working perfectly, and then suddenly it stopped. We lost power in an instant, the car stopped and there was a fire. The source could come from elements that were too hot and not properly cooled, explained Egginton. We need to look into this, there is a lot of superficial damage, he added before listing them.
« At the very least, we will have a new suspension, a lot of new features on the connectivity, and the bodywork has also been damaged. We will check the battery and the internal combustion engine because there is a lot of fire extinguisher foam on and inside the car. In the worst-case scenario, we will replace the power unit, but it’s still too early to say. Everything that was connected to the power unit and the gearbox was located in the fire area. And furthermore, all of this was affected by the fire extinguisher. So it is possible that we will have to send everything back to the factory to change these components, lamented the technical director ».
