Alpine Formula 1 driver Pierre Gasly has blamed his underwhelming Dutch Grand Prix result on Racing Bulls’ team tactics in Sunday’s race, amid their tight battle in the constructors’ championship.
Gasly was on form in Zandvoort, where he qualified and finished eighth in the sprint – ‘best of the rest’, in other words – although he took just 11th on the grid for the main race.
A strong start, however, meant the former Racing Bulls racer swiftly climbed to eighth – but that was until his first pitstop dropped him behind Arvid Lindblad, whose drive-through penalty for a yellow-flag infringement had taken him out of contention for points.
Gasly spent seven laps stuck behind Lindblad until he attempted an overtake around the outside of Turn 11, but locked up and was passed by Nico Hulkenberg, with Yuki Tsunoda now tailing him.
Hulkenberg made short work of Lindblad, but Gasly still couldn’t and Tsunoda impressively overtook the Alpine into Turn 7, a move he set up in the banked Turn 3 curve.
While Lindblad unsurprisingly made it easy for his Racing Bulls team-mate to go through, Gasly kept struggling. Overall, it took a whopping 17 laps in total for the Frenchman to get by.
Pierre Gasly, Alpine, behind Yuki Tsunoda, Racing Bulls
Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images
To compound his issues, Gasly found himself behind Tsunoda after his second pitstop and required another 10 laps to find a way past his former team-mate.
“VCARB ruined our race in the middle part of the race, played a team game for the championship and did it well,” Gasly lamented. “I mean, it just made me lose a position to Nico and Tsunoda and I don't know how many seconds of race time. Congrats to them, and I can't wait to race them.”
The Racing Bulls strategy had no impact on the Faenza-based team, which failed to score points as Tsunoda and Lindblad finished 11th and 12th, but most certainly cost Gasly ninth place. He finished one second behind Fernando Alonso after losing four seconds to the Spaniard – despite new tyres – when he was behind Lindblad; then the Tsunoda stumbling block prevented the Alpine driver from catching the Aston Martin, which was one-stopping, as quickly as he could have.
“It's just annoying, but it's Zandvoort,” Gasly added. “Can't really overtake, and this is going to change in the coming tracks. And good thing is I have a good memory, so I'm going to make sure we smile at the end of the year.”
Yet, when Motorsport.com put Gasly’s comments to him, Lindblad was unfazed: “I don't know. Yeah, that's a nice story. In the end, yeah, I played the team game. I don’t know.
Arvid Lindblad, Racing Bulls
Photo by: Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images
“If he has a good memory, then fine. In the end, we all fight as hard as we can every weekend. I tried to help the team where I could. The reality was, my race, I wasn't really in it anymore, so yeah, I did what I could to help the team.”
The two outfits are locked in a close fight for fifth place in the constructors’ championship, with Racing Bulls on 66 points and Alpine now up to 63.
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Originally published by motorsport.com —
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