Gasly had to be “creative” to overtake in Monaco
Author of 40% of the overruns of this Grand Prix of Monaco, Pierre Gasly had to show inventiveness to achieve this.
Pierre Gasly returned from the Monaco Grand Prix empty-handed, but it was not for lack of having tried everything. The pilot Alpha Tauri had undeniable potential on the streets of the Principality, showing his sixth time in EL1, his seventh time in EL2 and his fifth place in EL3. However, he was red flagged at the end of Q1, as he crossed the start line a fraction of a second after the session had officially ended and was unable to make a final attempt, recovering relegated to the Red zone.
Starting from 17th in Monaco, Gasly knew he was not going to have it easy. So he made a daring bet: put on the intermediate tires at the end of the second lap, when the safety car was behind and the green flag was waved. The Frenchman then found himself 18th more than 40 seconds from the lead but posted a pace that did not have much to envy to that of the leader Charles Leclerc on rain tyres, since he was only half a second slower on average… at least before catching up with the rest of the peloton.
Gasly then made two daring overtakes (out of the five in total during this race), the first from the inside on Zhou Guanyu in Mirabeau, the second from the outside on Daniel Ricardo between the tobacco shop and the swimming pool.
“It was very hot, but I was so much faster than those guys, I just had to calm down”comments the Norman. “I caught them extremely quickly, and afterwards, well, I wanted to overtake, but if the other defended well, there is no sudden space on the right or on the left. So you have to be creative. is what I tried to do. At the end of the day, we F1 drivers are a bit of artists, we always have to come up with new ideas. I tried to find unusual places to overtake, and it worked, so I’m happy with it.”
Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri)
“I don’t know how many times I almost hit the wall, on the track with 1000 horsepower, really slippery conditions and no references! When I decided to put on the intermediates and came out of the pits, I I thought it might be a really bad idea! But it had to work out somehow. Plus, it’s an exercise that I really enjoy. Finding buy-in is a great challenge, and I have to say that today my driving was really good. Unfortunately, we just split too far and paid the price for our poor choices in qualifying.”
Twelfth under the checkered flag, having taken advantage of the breakdown of Kevin Magnussen but having been overtaken in the pits by Sebastian VettelGasly moved up a spot after applying the five-second loss toEsteban Ocon and thus passed at least eight-tenths from the point of tenth position.
“I’m a bit sad not to be rewarded with a point at the end, because I think I probably deserve it. We lost quite a bit of time in our first pit stop, six or seven seconds, in the second pit stop about three seconds. That’s ten seconds of race time that we let slip away, which probably cost us a point.”underlines Gasly, whose four seconds lost during his second pit stop (compared to an optimal tire change) certainly caused him to lose the advantage against Vettel. “But in the end there are a lot of positives to take from this weekend, looking at free practice and the pace today. That’s what we will remember.”
Hosted by Luke Smith