Pierre Gasly was pleased with strategy that helped him keep Yuki Tsunoda at bay in F1 Belgian GP, as Esteban Ocon notes strategy error by Haas.
Alpine’s Gasly became an unlikely contender to score in F1 Belgian GP at Spa-Francorchamps. He ran outside the points for most part, but a crucial pit stop helped him beat the cars ahead. A late stop for Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg propelled him to 10th, which he had to defend.
He had Red Bull’s Tsunoda for major part of the grand prix, but he managed to keep him at bay eventually. The Japanese driver was not the only one in the queue, as Haas’ Oliver Bearman too fancied his chance. The Brit almost got through the Red Bull driver, but couldn’t make it stick.
By and by they had Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and Mercedes’ Andrea Kimi Antonelli rubbing shoulders too, but they couldn’t get through Bearman as such. The Brit had his own troubles. An engine issue hurt his chances, where he lost places to the likes of Gasly and Tsunoda.
He was aided initially by teammate Ocon after the Frenchman let him by on his own, without team orders. But Haas didn’t pit him early enough to gain positions. This hurt the Frenchman too, who eventually pitted two laps late and lost any chance of a points.
They also put Ocon on a used set of medium when he had a new one in place. There was strategy error on Red Bull’s end too for Tsunoda, who lost out after a miscommunication. He was supposed to pit together with Max Verstappen as double stack, but late radio didn’t allow for that.
This cost him places and high degradation eventually hurt his chances to pass Gasly. The downforce difference was a big factor as well. It was still a slightly better run from the Japanese driver after the team elected to put on the updated floor, which Mekies thinks got more publicity than it should have.
Race, strategy –
Gasly: “I knew I wasn’t in the top ten at that stage and I knew this was a big gain. Switched at the right moment, the previous lap it was a bit on the edge. That lap was a tricky call but I knew there was quite a lot to gain so I just decided to go for it. And then once we got track position, I knew I would be in a position to defend. I wasn’t thinking I was going to have to defend for that many laps with a train of cars that kept growing throughout the entire race. It was very intense. I’m sure I’m going to sleep well tonight, yeah, probably one of the hardest points. Definitely, if we would have been on another rear wing, we needed to make pace and the guys up there just passed us. They were faster than us on pure pace. That’s the sort of choice we made, go with a very skinny rear wing and at least give us an edge on the straights.
“And yeah, we just had to survive and make the no mistake for the point. I must say, I’m very pleased with the way we’re working, communication, and understanding. They were able to give me a car, even though we don’t have the ultimate pace, we still managed to get the best out of the package we have. We got it right in Silverstone, today we again got it right. In Silverstone, it was good teamwork. Today, I told them, they were ready when I felt it was possible, I decided to dive in and it paid off. We’ll see. I’m taking every weekend at a time. Silverstone and Spa turned out to be strong weekends. Next week, it’s a high downforce race track. It changes the order a bit, but let’s see what we can do.”
Tsunoda: “[It was] very frustrating. It already started from a miscommunication, or I don’t know what to say more than that, to swap the tyres. They called me at a late moment, just past after the pit entry. For one lap, this kind of long track is very decisive, and unfortunately, I lost that opportunity. I lost four positions, five positions, whatever, and I was stuck behind Pierre. The tyres were gone, I tried my best to overtake him, but unfortunately, I couldn’t. It was dry [so I was asking for slicks], I don’t know more what should I say about the tyres, obviously I can’t…I don’t know. The straightline speed, I struggled, unfortunately, there was no speed to overtake – I tried my best throughout the lap, but again the tyres were gone.”
Bearman: “Incredibly frustrating, I think the main frustration was that we did box a lap too late from the inter to the slick, and got undercut by a few guys – but it happens, it’s one of those where it’s really difficult to judge. Honestly, from my side, I didn’t really give much feedback on the track because I was nursing a problem with the engine, and more focused on that, because I was struggling with my battery charge and everything. After the stops I was net P10, just behind Hulkenberg and then coming out of last corner, I had no power and engine went to limp mode and I lost three spots to Gasly, to Alonso, to Yuki as well. Then I spent the whole race just…pit stop, trying to catch it back but it is impossible to overtake here.”
Ocon: “Frustrating. I think there are two very crucial decisions that we didn’t do in the right way. We need to review as a team because we had the pace to score with both cars. Once we got going, everything was normal. The pace was there, so it is a big shame, the first one obviously, yes, was boxing two laps too late. We need to review these last two races because I feel when it’s wet, we don’t put things together. And the other thing was boxing onto a used set of tyres while we had a new one in the truck ready for us.
“So, I did basically my 35 laps on a used set of tyres while we had a new set of medium ready for the race, so that’s a big and costly mistake. We will review everything. If I need to give more information, I will in the future. But there is a very clear process on who takes decisions for what into the team. I believe that I did what I needed to do, but again it’s all together that we messed up and we will do everything we need for that not to happen.”
Mekies: “So for Yuki, it was our mistake. We wanted to pit him on the same laps as Max and everything was ready, the crew was out, everything was ready to get both cars and we simply called him too late. So it’s on us, unfortunately. And one lap made a big difference today. So he lost, I think, three or four positions, which ultimately stopped his fight for the points.”
Tsunoda’s pace –
Gasly: “He’s flying with me tonight. That’s going to be an interesting flight. I wouldn’t be surprised if he sits back and doesn’t talk to me for the entire way. He was not happy, I was surprised he boxed so late, I was surprised he kind of drifted behind me after the pit. I do my race, he does his race. I’m sure he’s frustrated. They went for a bit more downforce for the wet. I was probably on the skinniest rear wing of the grid. It’s just unlucky he fell behind me.”
Letting Bearman go –
Ocon: “I let him go before Turn 5. The team didn’t ask me to let him go, because I was holding him up in the middle sector quite a lot and I was damaging my tyres much more. I let him go just before Turn 5, I pulled on the inside and then he did his race. But they boxed him one lap too late, the team boxed him one lap too late and they boxed me two laps too late. We should have both been one lap on the earlier side and if we would have done that, then definitely it would have been a different story.”
Floor scene –
Mekies: “No, for the floor, as much as we got a lot of publicity for it, it’s nothing unusual or nothing different here. You push very, very hard to get the latest specification as soon as you can at the racetrack. You get it for one car, then you get it for the second car and it’s based on, you know, when are the parts coming, when is your next sample of that part coming. And sometimes you have surprise because one comes in earlier and one comes in later. So as soon as it became available, we were then faced with a choice to either wait for the following weekend or to use that slightly unusual window between sprint and main quali, which comes with some risk.
“It comes with some risk because it was extremely tight to be able to fit the parts of the car. So the crew did an amazing job and as you have seen, we were actually slightly late going out for qualifying. And then you normally pay a price because the drivers need to adapt and it’s not very nice to go into quali with a new specification car. But anyway, we felt it was worth the risk and the effort and Yuki did an amazing job with it to adapt through qualifying to it and certainly did a big step of performance and did a very, very strong quali. So it’s certainly a superb job he has done to adapt and to extract car performance in these conditions.”
Here’s fastest pit stop for Yuki Tsunoda: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/dhl-fastest-pit-stop-2025-belgian-grand-prix.1838889525268285216
Here’s Max Verstappen on delayed start
