Oscar Piastri rues the small touch against Pierre Gasly which ruined his F1 Saudi Arabian GP, along with teammate Lando Norris.
Having had a touch first F1 race in Bahrain where he only completed 13 laps, McLaren’s Piastri had his heart in his mouth after small contact with Alpine’s Gasly at Turn 1-2 sequence in Saudi Arabian GP at Jeddah last weekend.
Piastri was on the outside when he made a very minor contact with Gasly, but it resulted in double trouble again for McLaren. The Brit ran over the debris and damaged his own front wing as both needed to pit and be well out of Top 10 contention.
There was no blame from either Piastri or Norris as first laps always results in tight situations. The two though had some fun against Williams’ Logan Sargeant towards the end, where the Brit let the Australian through which helped him to pass the American.
Nothing for points but for learning. For Gasly, it was another points finish in ninth behind teammate Esteban Ocon. The two had their own small moment on safety car re-start at the same corner, but post that it was managing pace at a safe distance.
Piastri: “I haven’t seen it yet, I’m not 100% sure. I think it was really just one of those lap one, Turn 1 incidents. I don’t think it was anyone’s fault. The contact felt really small. So I was honestly quite surprised to have damage. I’m not sure if there was anything I could have done really, I was squeezed a little bit. We will try and see if we could have done anything different.”
Gasly – on Piastri: “I can’t remember if I got him straight out of the blocks or into Turn 1 but yeah, we were side-by-side and there was a light contact out of Turn 2. Unfortunately, he picked up damage. I don’t think there was anything, to be fair from inside the car, it was so light, I was surprised that he picked up even damage from it.
Gasly – on Ocon: “I had to go for it and also at the re-start, I mean, that was the only time that I raced pretty much for the whole race as I was in a no mans land. It was good to get close but after that we stayed like two seconds from each other the majority of the race, unfortunately that was the only real race for us because we were 10s behind the guys ahead and 10s ahead of the guys behind but that just shows pretty much where we are. I got close to Lewis at the start but couldn’t quite pass him and that was about it.”
Ocon: “We were there at safety car re-start but after that no, there was about 2-3 seconds gap, so I was managing pace and he was managing pace also. We didn’t wanted a sudden drop-off in tyres and have the other cars behind catch us. It was an easy race in that regard.”
Norris: “I had a really good start but I got all the debris from the Oscar and Pierre contact, and it ruined my race. I broke my front wing and I had to box which ruined the race. I think I would have done if I didn’t let Oscar go but I let Oscar go, I let him have a crack at it and he did it, so fair play.”
Here’s how the start was: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2023-saudi-arabian-grand-prix-alonso-jumps-pole-sitter-perez-to-snatch-the-lead-at-the-race-start-at-jeddah.1760817500532935680.html
Here’s how F1 Saudi Arabian GP panned out
