Photo Credit: Alpine F1 Team
At the end of the Japanese GP, Pierre Gasly was very dissatisfied with Alpine’s management of the race, after feeling like the victim of an unfair team order that handed P9 to Esteban Ocon. It was dissatisfaction that he expressed both on the radio with his race engineer and in the interviews afterwards.
It was a positive Japanese GP for Alpine. They raised their heads and placed two cars in the points thanks to the ninth place of Esteban Ocon and the tenth of Pierre Gasly.
But as we learned after the chequered flag, it was not easy to manage for the Enstone-based team. In fact, at the end, Gasly found himself on the track with fresher tyres than Ocon’s: a situation which led the team to swap the cars as the driver of car #10 tried in vain to catch and overtake the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso for P8, but he failed to do so.
An order that Ocon respected, except that the team allegedly did not specify to Gasly that, if he failed to overtake Alonso, he would have to give the position back to his teammate at the end of the race.
It was a request that Gasly did not willingly accept (after he was undercut by Ocon in the phase when the second stops arrived) and which annoyed him, so much so that it prompted a heated exchange via radio with his race engineer Karel Loos.
Loos: “Instruction from the pit wall, can we swap back around please?”
Gasly: “Wait, what the ****? You’re kidding me. What are you saying? I was faster. I’m on fresher rubber. I would’ve overtaken him anyway.”
Loos: “We’ll discuss it in the office, swap around please.”
Gasly: “Are you serious? Are you being serious? I started in front, I was in front of the whole race, you let him undercut me.”
Loos: “I’m not joking, instructions from the pit wall. Let’s do it next time around please, Turn 16.”
Gasly: “Confirm that you want to swap?”
Loos: “Affirm, affirm please.”
Gasly: “Yeah, thank you. Complete joke.”
Loos: “Please Pierre.”
Gasly: “Yeah, I’m doing it.”
Loos: “You don’t have to say anything now, we’ll discuss it later.”
It was the result of incorrect communication between the team and drivers. At the end of the race, it was commented on by Gasly and Ocon.
First of all, Gasly underlined the team’s lack of clarity, and then claimed the right not to give up the position as he felt he would have passed Ocon on track without the team orders. The 2020 Italian Grand Prix winner had 6-lap fresher tyres in the final stint.
“It was told that with Esteban, they would decide to undercut me with the strategy. They would undercut the leading car and they will let me pass so we don’t lose time It was never said that we would need to reverse again, because I was always in front.
“For the team it’s the same, ninth and 10th but it’s definitely not something I expected and not really something I understand as well. But we will talk.
“It was clear that with the strategy they had planned, at some point Esteban would undercut me. But my race was faster, I would have overtook him anyway on the race track because I had fresher tires.
“This was part of the strategy that was done before the race. Until then it was similar, it was just on the last lap. But anyway – it’s something we’ll talk about together, I’m sure the next time around Esteban will play it fair.”
On the other hand, however, Esteban Ocon underlined how, instead of showing anger, Gasly should be proud of the good team work done.
“I’ve been with this team for four years and the rule has always been the same. If you swap the position initially, which I did to Pierre I gave him the position, if you don’t get the car in front then you always switch back before the end. It was the same with Daniel, it was the same with Fernando. We were doing that, if it’s me, if it’s him, if it’s the other way around I will do the same.
“I always prefer to fight on track which is more a bit of an old school way but I understand the team’s point of view, which is to try and get some more points. I think today we maximized what was on the table and we can be proud of ourselves for good teamwork.”
