Gasly Recounts Shanghai Pit Incident

Pierre Gasly discusses his alarming pit stop experience during the Shanghai Grand Prix and his outlook for Miami.

Pierre Gasly’s chances of performing well at the last Chinese Grand Prix were compromised by his 19-second pit stop.

However, the stop could have turned out even worse. Because when the green light was shown (before quickly returning to red), Pierre Gasly logically engaged the forward gear of his Alpine.

Yet a mechanic was still working on his right rear tire, which was not attached. The mechanic was knocked over and jostled by the departing Alpine, but fortunately, he is fine today (and the F1 did not run over him).

Alpine was fined €10,000 by the FIA for this incident.

“It was quite scary,” Gasly now says.

“My green light, the light turned green so I released the clutch, but it went red right after.”

“I saw it in the rearview mirror and saw that the wheel was not fixed. The mechanic is fine, which was a bit scary for me.”

“We’ve had a few cases this year where I’ve lost time in the pits, so I’m sure we’re going to review exactly what happened and improve it for next time. This incident cost me some positions.”

Starting last, Pierre Gasly took advantage of the safety car to get back into the race. He finished the event in 13th place, nine seconds from the points and just behind Alexander Albon.

The Frenchman crossed swords with the Williams F1 at the restart; the FIA noted the incident but did not open an investigation.

“I also had a tense moment with Alex after the safety car; I was pushed wide.”

“We lost time in certain areas and we’re going to review all of that, but with the car we had, we’re already happy to have finished 13th.”

Upgrades to compete for the top 10 in Miami?

Pierre Gasly did not have the upgrades (notably a lighter floor) last weekend at Alpine.

Ocon did—and with his new parts and a new chassis, Esteban managed to finish the race in 11th place, just outside the points.

Gasly is therefore eager to receive these upgrades in Miami (he will have the new parts but not a new chassis which is itself slightly lighter).

These parts are worth about two-tenths—not earth-shattering, but still significant.

“It’s just a few kilos less.”

“And I will have more aerodynamic points, support points everywhere.”

“The most important thing is that it works, as we saw from the first session.”

“I was a bit eager to have that, but starting from Miami, I’ll be on this package.”

“And we will continue to work because I always want more than what we’ve seen, so we need to find even more performance.”

“In the first races, we were behind, we couldn’t really attack or defend our position.”

“So if the new chassis just gives us a few tenths, we can be slightly closer, we can be a bit more in the fray.”

“And as we saw in Shanghai, we are not so far from the points.”

“There’s a big gap with the top five, so it looks like at least for the next two months, we’ll be fighting for small points, but they will be crucial and will definitely make a big difference at the end of the year.”

“So yes, I’m really looking forward to Miami.”