Gasly frustrated with ‘silly’ time penalty in Spain

Henry Valantine
Pierre Gasly Spain 2021 PA

Pierre Gasly Spain 2021 PA

Pierre Gasly spoke of his frustration after picking up a “silly” five-second penalty at the start of the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday.

The Frenchman overshot his grid slot as the drivers lined up for the race to get underway, with the stewards giving him a five-second penalty that ended up significantly impacting his race.

While the AlphaTauri driver came home P10, his five-second hold-up in his pit box cost him a chance of finishing higher up the standings.

“I don’t really know how to feel,” Gasly told Sky Sports after the race. “I’m really upset with myself for the penalty at the start. I didn’t really know [I went too far], I try to gain every millimetre I can and this time, I just misjudged and went too far.

“It’s really silly. I lost a five-second time penalty for that, it compromised our first stop and potentially we could have undercut some of the guys.

“We finished a tenth from Ocon so I know that it cost us a point. I’m not pleased with myself but the last stint was very exciting with everything, I think it was a pretty good one.”

Get your hands on Pierre Gasly merchandise via the official Formula 1 store

Gasly added that he is puzzled as to why AlphaTauri have fallen off the pace of late, with the team looking like they had a strong overall package in Bahrain, but he and Yuki Tsunoda have been on a slide down the field in recent races.

Having shown plenty of early potential, a return of only 10 points on the board in the Constructors’ Championship so far will not feel like a just reward for the apparent strength of the car.

“I think [P9] is objectively the position where we should have finished,” Gasly continued. “I think overall, the performance is not where we want it to be because we seem to have really lost [pace] in the last two races – in Portimao and this weekend.

“We’re clearly not in the fight with McLaren and Ferrari, I think we dropped back in the order and we need to understand exactly why, because I think there is potential, but we just seem to have lost it slightly in the last two races.”

Follow us on Twitter @Planet_F1, like our Facebook page and join us on Instagram!