Newcomer Gasly completed Malaysian GP without a drink

2017 Malaysian Grand Prix

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Formula One newcomer Pierre Gasly revealed he completed his first race for Toro Rosso without being able to drink.

The Malaysian Grand Prix is considered one of the most physically demanding on the calendar. Today’s race lasted one-and-a-half hours and and temperatures reached 37C.

2017 Malaysian GP in pictures
“Maybe the team wanted to make the race a bit tougher for me without the drink,” Gasly joked afterwards.

“[The drink] worked but just I didn’t have the tube in the mouth,” he explained. “I could feel the water but nothing in my mouth. It was a bit annoying.”

“But in the end I think it was positive. I tried not to make some mistakes, take some experience for the next couple of races. And definitely it was a good first one.”

Valtteri Bottas had a similar problem at the last race in Singapore, another of the hottest races of the season, where he was also unable to take on any liquid.

Gasly finished 14th on his debut. Team mate Carlos Sainz Jnr retired with a technical problem.

“It was amazing,” said Gasly, “my first Formula One race, it’s a very special moment.”

2017 Malaysian Grand Prix

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    23 comments on “Newcomer Gasly completed Malaysian GP without a drink”

    1. Good performance, Kvyat must be nervous.

      1. +1, also if Gasly keep up good performance, Kvyat might not get to drive for remainder of the races.

        1. I expect Kvyat to race in Austin, as that race clashes with the finale of the Japanese Super Formula. Gasly is 1/2 a point behind the leader and he drives for Team Mugen (Honda). Honda will want to win that championship after the year they have had with McLaren. Since Gasly will be driving the Honda powered Toro Rosso next year, Toro Rosso will probably want to start on a “good footing” with Honda by not preventing Gasly from winning that championship. Basically it will be a “win-win” for everyone at Toro Rosso and Honda, in this scenario.

          1. @ijw1 Very interesting point!

      2. Good performance regarding his drink bottle, but being beaten by the awful Haas (at this circuit) is not a good performance at all. He was also over half a minute down on Sainz before he had to retire.

        Yes I know this is his first F1 race, but to me he approached it too conservatively. Basically he just finished the race without incidents. That’s not a good performance. I do think he has potential, all his previous series results show that, but when he wants to establish himself and earn a 2018 race seat, he needs to up his game next race. Even Kvyat regularly performs better compared to Sainz.

        1. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
          1st October 2017, 13:56

          It is his first race when it is right in the middle of the season. I think that would be a lot harder than starting at the beginning of the season when all drivers around you are at leased a bit unfamiliar with their cars.

          But I do think his performance is being a little over rated. I personally doubt he will be better than Kvyat. At leased not instantly. When Kvyat is on form, the gap behind Sainz isn’t actaully that huge. Kvyat even did better than Sainz over the whole weekend in Monza. Kvyat is rather inconsistent, but I think his ability to perform well is still there. Over the first season or the beggining of it at leased, I think Kvyat will do better than Gasly. That is if either of them are certainly there next year in this team.

          1. @thegianthogweed the gap between Gasly and Sainz wasn’t huge. There wasn’t really a gap.

            1. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
              1st October 2017, 18:57

              I really don’t think you payed very close attention. Gasly was close to Sainz until he pitted. After he pitted, the gap barely closed between them at all even though Sainz was on the same tyres he started on.

              After Gasly had pitted, he was about 24 seconds behind Sainz. And when Sainz was about to retire about 16 laps later, he was 25 seconds ahead. So Gasly hadn’t gained any time at all after he pitted and was on tyres that had done about 13 less laps. I think this shows the pace gap between them was pretty big on this occasion.

            2. @thegianthogweed I did pay attention thank you very much. Keep in mind the SS was estimated by Pirelli at 0.8s faster than the S tyre and as Vettel demonstrated didn’t show dramatic dropoff until the tyres were effectively done. Gasly was probably pitted a bit soon or they choose to split strategies, point is Sainz was not at a tyre disadvantage.

              So no the gap was not “huge”. Gasly did an excellent job, any better means he would’ve been running ahead of Sainz. For a mid-season replacement that would be a huge ask.

          2. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
            1st October 2017, 22:10

            I think they are probably a bit closer than I thought then. But the fact that Sainz had done 29 laps on softs and was still pulling away from Gasly who was on 13 laps newer tyres still shows there was quite some difference. At this point, Gasly’s tyres should have lasted much longer than the ones Sainz was on and his pace should have been at the best at this stage and Sainz can’t have been far from pitting. There has to be at leased some loss of performance when the tyres are at this age compared to earlier on. I still think there was a bigger difference between them than Kvyat on average when he and Sainz both start the race in a similar position when they both finish. I know Gasly is new to F1 and he did do a very good job, but I do reckon Kvyat will be better, certainly for the first part of next year anyway. Especially as he was pretty much even with Sainz in qualifying.

            1. @thegianthogweed
              1. There was no loss of performance of the tyre. Towards the end of the stint, Sainz kept running steadily in the mid-to-low 1:38’s without even a minder exception. So his tyres remained fine.
              2. Sainz was not “still pulling away from Gasly. The gap was 24.9 after Gasly pitted, and it was 24.8 by the time Sainz came in. Two times Gasly lost some time after having to overtake a Sauber, and two times he clawed back the time he lost.
              3. Regarding the “bigger difference between them than Kvyat on average”: well, that’s 100% conjecture from your side. If Sainz hadn’t had to stop, he would have slotted in right in front of Gasly after his stop. All the rest is conjecture, but know that just once this season Kvyat managed to end up only 1 place behind Sainz when both finished, all the other times multiple places behind.

        2. @addvariety look into it and you’ll find he kept up with Sainz and the only reason Sainz was that much ahead was because Sainz never pitted.

          1. @mattds You’re right, I totally missed that Sainz had pitted on lap 12. Looking at the interactive lap times, they were almost equal. So I’ve to admit I was wrong in that aspect which does make it a better performance than I thought it was. I’m still not blown away or even pleasantly surprised, but I think he’ll get there.

            To me, Gasly will not be the next Hamilton, Vettel, Ricciardo or Verstappen, he looks more like a Hülkenberg, Sainz or Raikkkonen. A very solid performer allround. And that’s not a bad thing per se of course.

    2. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
      1st October 2017, 12:31

      This drinks problem is getting silly now. Why on earth do they use something so complicated to allow the drivers to drink. Why not just keep things simple than there is less to go wrong. Lats race was the longest race of the year and Bottas’s drinks Bottle wasn’t workign properly and he actually ended up suffering from dehydration a little and as a result, got slightly blurred vision. Well done to Gasly for managing this in another very hot race. The teams seriously need to solve this problem. i know it isn’t something that often happens but that is 2 races in a row now. If they kept the mechanism that delivered the water simple, there wouldn’t really be anything to go wrong. I think they have gone a step too far if you can get such a thing as a faulty water bottle. That just sounds silly.

      1. Its complicated yes but the fundamental think is to start the race with the tube near your mouth.

      2. @thegianthogweed, I don’t think that you have read the article properly – as @bluechris notes, the drinks bottle was working perfectly fine, but Gasly had accidentally dislodged the drinks tube and couldn’t get it to fit back in his mouth.

        Also, since you ask, the drinks system on most cars is pretty basic – it’s a small electric pump that bears more of a resemblance to your windscreen washer pump, with a simple on-off switch on the steering wheel. I’m not sure how much simpler you want to make it, because it is not exactly that sophisticated to begin with.

        1. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
          1st October 2017, 22:27

          All I mean is why do you have to have something electric for something as simple as a giving you a water supply? Putting electronics in things just has more potential for things to go wrong sometimes. That was my point about things being over complicated. But they probably will have their reasons that are essential for this so it probably will be me not being knowledgeable enough to know the reasons why they need these things as they are. But I think Keith mentioned that last year, another driver had the same problem as Bottas. And these are the things I think are silly. An electrical fault being a responsible for water not coming out. Why can’t it have something like a manual pump in case something like this happens. Or even just this so it makes it less likely anything will go wrong. As we’ve seen in F1 in recent years, electrical things seem so unreliable sometimes, so more basic ideas for things sometimes work better.

          But your main point was correct. I got an impression of what happened without reading into it properly.

    3. drinks issue aside i didn’t think he was that impressive today.

      his pace was not especially good, especially when compared to sainz was up up running well inside the points at a time when gasly had only the 2 saubers & grosjean behind him & he wasn’t exactly pulling away from those 3.

      given how drivers like vettel, ricciardo, verstappen, hamilton among others came in & were on it from lap 1 matching the pace of team mates (even kvyat was close to vergne’s pace on his debut, finishing right behind him), i honestly don’t think gasly did anything that good today… honestly he is not one of the better red bull backed drivers.

      1. Up until deep in the race the 10 or so midfield drivers were within 20 seconds, so all of them did more or less the same pace. Toro Rosso weren’t impressive, including Sainz who finished 4th in Singapore.
        It is not Gasly’s fault that he trailed in that group; rather, he was cautious, backing out where others were set on exchanging carbon and gaining experience rather than points.
        He could have taken more risk and finish in the points or the barriers. He brought it home with points position drivers in view. Well done.

      2. PeterG, the only reason Sainz was running in the points was because he hadn’t stopped yet.
        Before Gasly pitted he was keeping up with Sainz.

    4. In my opinion, Gasly did well to take it cautiously today. Better to be cautious and finish rather than try to impress and muck it up. Imagine the massive nerves on your first GP. The team will expect a lot more in the next couple of races but it’s a good clean start.

      Fingers crossed Kvyat keeps the other seat. I keep shifting from thinking he’s not good enough for F1 to thinking he has a lot of potential.

    5. When the company that finances you is a drinks company you think they would have working bottles! Maybe that’s red bull comes in cans!

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