Pierre Gasly: “A quite crazy race”
By finishing in ninth place, Pierre Gasly achieves Alpine's best result this season. After a solid Canadian Grand Prix, he was quite talkative in front of journalists' microphones. He also reacted to his teammate Esteban Ocon's comments, who was very frustrated with a team decision at the end of the race.
Starting from 15th on the grid, the French driver had a very good Grand Prix in Canada. He was able to adopt a good strategy to take advantage of the very variable weather conditions.
A chaotic start… and a risky bet
It was a pretty crazy race, it started badly because I had contact with Perez right from the start and unfortunately I found myself sideways on the straight. I was almost last at that point. It had started badly ». Indeed, he loses 3 places right from the start and finds himself in 17th position. Nevertheless, he will react very quickly and make some profitable choices. On the 41st lap, he goes into the pits and comes out on hard tires. He is the first driver to dare the slick tire gamble:
« I preferred to take the risk of returning to the pits a little too early. It was probably a lap too early. The out lap was really very, very difficult to stay on track. I lost quite a bit of time but later, with the tires warmed up, we were really very competitive and managed to overtake quite a few cars. And with the hard tires towards the end, I was really feeling good. We managed to climb back up and not make any mistakes in a race that was really very complicated.
Pierre Gasly, winner of the team orders
It’s the shadow on Alpine’s weekend… Esteban Ocon didn’t hide his frustration on Canal + microphone at the end of the Grand Prix. Following his engineers’ request, he let his ninth position on the penultimate lap to Pierre Gasly. The latter spoke about the situation:
« Actually, the goal was to attack Ricciardo. We would have liked to change positions four laps earlier than what we did, to try to stay closer to Ricciardo. In the end, it happened a bit later but it’s not a big deal. I think it was pretty clear for the team that with the hard tires I had a bit more chance to attack Daniel. In the end, we scored three points, I think considering the start of the season we can be satisfied with this race.
I am really happy for the team.
Such a weekend must be good for the French ranks. Certainly controversies are never far away, but the performance, strategy, and driving aligned perfectly this weekend: the most successful of the season so far. Pierre Gasly pointed it out to Canal + microphone after the race:
We have seen a lot of things happen and score points with the two cars, which is extremely well received from where we started, so happy for the team and we know that it is in races like this that we must try not to make mistakes and go all the way. I am really happy for the team.
