Formula 1, Gasly after stroll crash: It’s just unfair!

“It was pretty clear to me,” Gasly said after the race. “It’s always been in the rules that you can’t go off the track and get an advantage by doing so. Er [Stroll] had all four wheels outside the track – that’s an advantage.” And further: “In Spielberg I got a total of 15 seconds as a penalty because of the track limits. Here I lose a position because he goes off the track and nothing happens,” Gasly complained. “All I’m asking for is consistency. If allowed, all good. But then it must be allowed for everyone. I’m extremely confused about what’s happening right now.”

Stroll himself disagreed with the Alpine rider’s verdict. “He didn’t leave me any space and just pushed me off the track, for which I got a track limit warning,” said the Canadian. “The next time I wanted to overtake him, he again gave me no space.”

Duel goes into the next round – Gasly wrecks suspension

Stroll was referring to the second encounter between the two pilots. After Kevin Magnussen’s engine was totaled, the safety car was called out on lap 34 and the field tightened again. When this was brought back in, a showdown developed with 14 remaining laps for the last points in which the two protagonists were again involved in a duel – this time, however, with a collision. Unlike the first altercation, race officials pinned Stroll as the main culprit and gave him a 5-second penalty. Pierre Gasly, on the other hand, damaged his rear wheel suspension in the collision, dragged himself into the pits and had to retire from the race.

After the race, Stroll assessed the incident and the resulting penalty as follows: “Well, if I had been given more space, I would not have had to come back on the track in the way and we would not have touched. You [Medien] you can decide.”

Alpine nightmare weekend: No points despite good pace

The collision between Gasly and Stroll was just the tip of the iceberg of a disastrous weekend for Alpine. The reliability problems followed the French team after Silverstone and Esteban Ocon had to retire his A523 with a hydraulic leak as early as lap 18 of the race. Furthermore, Alpine missed Q3 with both cars in qualifying and thus fell short of their own ambitious goals. Nevertheless, the Alpine seemed to run much better in the race. At the time of the hydraulic leak, Ocon was in ninth place, and when Gasly’s momentous duel he was in eleventh place. Instead of potentially doubling the points, Alpine started the journey home from Silverstone to Enstone with 0 World Championship points. As a result, the team even had to give up fifth place in the constructors’ championship to the reinvigorated McLaren team.

“I’m very disappointed because the first part of the race went very well,” Gasly analyzed after the race. “We were able to chase Fernando and had good speed, but on the straights we were a little too slow to attack him. Still, it felt good to be in this group, at least until our efforts were destroyed.”