‘I was devastated’ – Pierre Gasly details Monaco penalty pain amid Alpine FIA battle

Pierre Gasly has described the penalty that cost a Monaco Grand Prix podium as the “hardest” sporting moment of his Formula 1 career, but the Alpine driver is staying tight-lipped while the team challenges the penalties through a Right of Review.

Alpine reported to the FIA stewards on Thursday at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya where the team would present what it hoped was new evidence that Gasly was not at fault for his pit lane speeding penalties.

Pierre Gasly explains Monaco penalty loss and Alpine’s FIA review case

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Gasly was twice hit with a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane at the Monaco Grand Prix. The FIA stated that he had driven at 60.1 km/h for the first offence, and 60.4 km/h for the second.

He was one of five drivers penalised for speeding in the pit lane.

But while the penalties didn’t hurt some drivers, such as Lewis Hamilton or Oscar Piastri, it was a massive blow for Gasly as his two penalties dropped him from third to seventh in the official classification.

For the stewards to even look at Gasly’s penalties, Alpine has to present evidence that brings a “significant and relevant new element which was unavailable to the party seeking the Review at the time of the Decision concerned”.

If that passes the test, then the review of the penalty will take place.

Gasly wouldn’t be drawn on the subject when he spoke with the media in Spain.

“Let’s say I don’t want to say too much until you know the hearing is done, until the team has the conversation with the FIA,” he replied to a question from PlanetF1.com.

“I think they’ve worked really hard. Basically did the best they could to bring the new evidence.

“For now, I mean, that’s it. I don’t want to share too much until then.”

The Frenchman revealed he’s been spending his days off since Monaco either taking time with his family, or speaking with Alpine and its legal team about the Right of Review.

“Just home training with my girlfriend, my dog, obviously talked about the old race weekend with my family, people I’m close with, and the people I work with,” he said.

“It’s been quite a lot of conversation with the team, with the lawyers about our case, etc. So still very much into what happened and the whole situation.”

Losing that podium in Monaco was, Gasly reckons, his most difficult moment as a Formula 1 driver.

“I think to me it’s fair to say this was the hardest day I’ve ever had in F1 and in my sport career, I’m talking sporting-wise, not 2019, sporting wise, I would say it was definitely the hardest to deal with, because I put in a very strong performance.

“I think, as a kid obviously, I grew up watching Formula One, the iconic Monaco Grand Prix as a French has a special meaning to me, and never had the chance to go on that podium, and yeah, I was..

“I know I’m someone quite emotional, but like dealing with all the emotion I felt after the race, for me was extremely hard and intense.

“If you drive a car that gives you the possibility to finish on the podium every other weekend, it’s slightly different. You move on quickly, come here, fight for the podium, eventually to win. It’s a bit easier.

“In my career, I’ve not been in a position to have that car yet underneath me, so I know when the chance is there, might be once a year, might be once every two years, might be two, three times a year, but once it’s there, I want to make sure that I’m the one grabbing it, and it was a special place with special results.

“It was definitely the toughest, toughest moment, which, yeah, also makes me learn about myself and how to cope with that, but not a nice moment.”

What hurt the most was that he believes Alpine did everything right in Monaco.

Not only did Gasly qualify inside the top ten, he made up a position at the start against Lando Norris and also nailed the restart after a red flag for Charles Leclerc’s crashed Ferrari.

And then it came to nought.

“I kind of said I know at the moment with the package I have, which is pretty much where I’ve been my entire career, the main point for me is to put myself in situation where I can seize these opportunities when they come up,” he said.

“I think in terms of performance we’ve executed everything perfectly with the team, great quali, great style.

“I managed to pass Lando the first start, I managed to pass Isack at the second start. So, I think in terms of performance, we can be very proud of what we’ve achieved during that weekend.

“I think it kind of shows the good work we’ve been doing this in the start of the year, managed to score points in every round. We’re consistent, the execution is there. So I think there’s definitely a lot of positives.

“I definitely needed these few days to kind of calm down. Monaco alone is already very intense as a weekend on and off the track, the driving takes a lot of energy, you run extremely high on adrenaline, so mix with the situation itself, it was quite a lot to process Monday, Tuesday.

“But now I’m feeling a good place to really have 100% of my head in this new race weekend.”

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

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