Pierre Gasly was not too pleased after he left to be sacrificed to help Esteban Ocon push up in F1 Singapore GP, which didn’t work.
In a Haas-like situation, Alpine tried to help Ocon further up in the grid in F1 Singapore GP by using Gasly a blocker in the path in a tight circuit to overtake. It dropped the latter way down the order and without any chance to recover places, which left him a bit disappointed.
Gasly found himself in the position after qualifying at the back, with Ocon making it in Q2. They pitted the latter at a time when most did and extended the first stint of the former. On degrading tyres, he was not only losing time but also places as he was not able to hold up the faster cars.
The sacrifice did help Ocon a touch though as he finished 13th in the order, with Gasly eventually ending up 17th. “I was sacrificed, left out on track to block the others to help Esteban to catch up, at the moment we are just too slow and it forces us to try some interesting strategies,” he said to media.
I was surprised to be, in the first place, left out like that as we started out of position, we were running 3-4s behind Esteban and then I was left out for another 15-20 laps when everybody around me was just overtaking right, left. I mean, it is not much to do in afternoon like that but obviously I hoped that we will be able to do slightly more than just use me to block others.
“I mean, when you are lapping five seconds off the pace, the last 10 laps, I mean, not much point but I understand we tried to help one car in a way because we were obviously not able to fight on pure pace for the Top 10,” summed up Gasly.
For Ocon, he noted that they simply didn’t have enough pace to challenge their rivals as they maxed out on everything they had. “Unfortunately, it was a tough weekend in general, I think we maximised what was there in the car, we just couldn’t keep with the train, with Tsunoda in front, he just pulled away, so we were just too slow to be able to be points contenders,” he said.
“I think there is three weeks for us to figure out something and try and get something more out of the car, the package we maximised it in Singapore, it wasn’t enough which is a little bit disappointing, because looking at last year where I was running fifth, I was expecting more out of the car or at least being able to be close margin of the Top 10, but it was very far from it. We need to be realistic and that was the case.”
Here’s link to a F1 Discord channel, join in to interact