The Qatar Grand Prix was known for a few things: sweltering heat, teammate collisions, and track limit penalties. So, so many track limit penalties.
Alpine’s Pierre Gasly was one of those drivers that received not one track limit penalty, but three, leaving him in 12th place at the end of proceedings. When discussing his race, he was very blunt and blamed himself for missing out on points this weekend.
“It wasn’t a good day.
“So I can only be disappointed with myself, because obviously you’re talking a few centimetres, which is nothing, but I paid a big price for it and missed out on the points. So I’ve just got to learn from this.
“All in all it was a tough day. I had a good start but went on the outside and had to slow down with the Mercedes [incident] in front of me, so lost another two positions.”
To add to that, Alpine was having reliability issues in regards to energy management. As the French driver was lacking straight-line speed, he was forced to go over the limit more often in the corners to try and compensate for it.
“And then after that the whole race we had energy management issues, which cost me straight-line speed throughout the whole race. I was just trying to compensate for it, and took too many risks. So just not a good day from us.”
When commenting on the track conditions and heat, he said that his training helped him get through this race.
Photo credit: BWT Alpine Formula 1 Team
“And I know I’m training really hard, and I have one of the best physical conditions in the paddock. So I usually embrace these conditions.
“And I know it’s challenging for everyone, but today I just didn’t do a good enough job, and I need to need to learn from this track limits story.”