Pierre Gasly, Toro Rosso, Silverstone, 2018

Gasly sick of “bullshit penalties” after losing point

2018 British Grand Prix

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Pierre Gasly says he is sick of “bullshit penalties” in Formula 1 after a post-race sanction cost him a points finish.

The Toro Rosso driver was given a five-second time penalty and points on his licence for the contact with Sergio Perez. The penalty dropped him from 10th place to 13th, and lifted Perez into the points.

Gasly criticised the decision in a post on social media.

“Five-second penalty, ridiculous,” he wrote.

“Every weekends there are contacts with no further action, that’s part of racing and what makes it exciting! Was close battle, I enjoyed it. Just let us race and stop all this bullshit with penalties! Will keep fighting.”

In their verdict on the collision the stewards conceded “Gasly’s manoeuvers were generally reasonable, and that he was attempting to make a good racing pass.” However they concluded he was responsible for the collision which forced Perez off the track and allowed Gasly through.

Perez supported the penalty and said he gave Gasly room to avoid contact. “Gasly pushed me off track,” said the Force India driver. “I gave him enough space but that was not enough. We still made contact and I lost the place.”

“I believe it was an unfair move. I’m pleased that the FIA took action after the race to penalise Gasly, which gave me back the final point.”

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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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31 comments on “Gasly sick of “bullshit penalties” after losing point”

  1. Interesting tactics from Gasly to get that last point. Was it deliberate or incompetence?

    1. Vettel fan 17 (@)
      9th July 2018, 9:25

      @bujilog I see what you did there ;)

      1. I kid of course. It’s entirely possible that he gave everything he could prior to the attempt. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was struggling to stand after the race ;)

        1. Calvin’s on a roll :-) @bujilog

        2. Keep going, keep going @bujilog!

  2. Gasly needs to learn how to drive in the first place. We could have aready seen that during his gp2 career. When he was overtaking, he pushed the other driver out of the track, when he was defending, he pushed the other driver out of the track. This is not fair racing.
    Same in Bahrain, when K-Mag attacked his 4th placed, he was pushed out of the track in t11. Congratulations, Red Bull, you’re now rising yet another “star” without respect to rules nor other drivers.

    1. @terrion ”Same in Bahrain, when K-Mag attacked his 4th placed, he was pushed out of the track in t11”
      – I don’t recall something like that happening in that race. If it indeed did then it just wasn’t shown on the world feed.

      1. I don’t recall in which part of the race it happened (around 1/4 – 1/3 I think). The camera was showing cars after them as you could see MAG on the outside wheel to wheel with Gasly. Then after camera switch you could see MAG returning to the track in the next corner.

        1. Baku right? Not Bahrain?

  3. ”Five-seconds, it’s a yoke! A joke. What a joke! The five-seconds, what a joke!”

    1. Yep should have had the same penalty as Kimi. That move on Perez was desperate and could have ruined race for both. What a joke this RBR driver is a complete polar opposite of LeClerk.

      1. It’s not a rbr driver.

        1. Same faternity. Scuderia Toro Rosso is a testing ground for rookie drivers.

      2. FreddyVictor
        9th July 2018, 12:13

        I agree, definitely not an RBR driver
        I think he was in ‘Allo ‘Allo wasn’t he ?
        Or am i getting confused !

  4. Peppermint-Lemon (@)
    9th July 2018, 10:21

    Gasly is right. Look at the wheel to wheel in formula e and it makes f1 look ridiculous.

    Let them race. It’s all even over time anyway.

    1. Neil (@neilosjames)
      9th July 2018, 15:13

      FE bumpercars only makes one series look ridiculous, and it’s not F1.

  5. I don’t want to be hugely critical but i held Gasly in high regard this year. He shows his frustration pretty frequently and unnecessarily (and the use of foul lang) and that is only damaging his reputation. In some races, he made it sound as if F1 deserved him and not the other way. May be he feels privileged but he is on his way to becoming a hot-headed person.
    Charles Leclerc on the other hand, is 100x better.

    1. @webtel – I heard Leclerc’s interview with C4 once he returned to the pits on Sunday, after his retirement. His mature response and acceptance of his DNF was extremely admirable; he’s not a role model for only his skills but also his temperament.

      1. @phylyp
        Absolutely. That sort of maturity shown at his age is very much commendable. I get the feeling that he is one the most liked drivers on the grid and it is only going to take him upwards.

      2. Strongly agree @phylyp. There is some kind of strange dissonance between his young look and his wise words.

  6. The Gasly/K-Mag incident is just at the beginning of the race, if I’m not mistaken – one of the first corners. KMag didn’t bitch about it, cause it was just hard racing, which he himself does. But Gasly did force him a bit off, the way I saw it. No big deal, but Gasly obviously also has well developed elbows :-)

  7. So only Red Bulls can use the “bump to pass” method, good to know. One of them was even a candidate for pass of the year (Ricciardo on Raikonnen in Monaco).

    1. @afonic Well Verstappen won a “pass of the year” while overtaking with all four wheels well outside the race track.

  8. Initially, I didn’t think it was Gasly’s fault as it looked like a racing incident, but after looking at the replay a couple of times, it does seem that he went too deep in to the chicane and pushed Perez off the track. He then got a better exit out of the chicane and passed him.

    I think it’s a fair penalty. Gasly wouldn’t have gotten the cleaner exit if he hadn’t pushed Perez off.

  9. I was expecting Sergio to get the penalty, not Pierre, as I thought that if anything, it was Sergio’s antics that were causing pieces of pink bodywork to fall off the car (and I’m a Force India fan). Accepting that this may have been an optical illusion, I’m still sympathetic to Pierre’s point. Maybe his incident wasn’t the greatest example of his general notion, but it is still a valid one.

  10. Maybe the FIA should go the opposite way: do not punish the act, but the consequences. You pass someone, bumping wheel-to-wheel without consequences? No penalty. You break his wing? 5 seconds, and so on. If the driver being overtaken loses a couple positions but can keep driving without pitting, no further action. It would be far more easy because the consequences are not that questionable.

    1. @m-bagattini – while a good idea, it is liable to being gamed. Footballers are notorious for diving better than swimmers, and there is a risk that someone who will inevitably be overtaken will make contact, perform a dramatic pirouette, and end up penalizing the overtaking driver.

      Consider Hamilton yesterday – if when overtaken Grosjean they touch wheels and Grosjean went off into a dramatic spin, the internet would be abuzz of whether it was, to use the phrase of the weekend “deliberate or incompetent”.

      1. Mh, good point @phylyp, although I suppose it is easier for a footballer to dive than for a driver to fake an incident without losing too much. Also, what’s the point in getting the driver overtaking you to be penalized if you too are losing something, maybe a little more than the other? For Ham to be penalized over Gro, Gro needed to break something and go into the pits. Maybe it is better to lose a position and nothing more. But it’s fair to think that a way or another to gamble could be found.

        1. @m-bagattini – fair point, and like I originally said, good idea. The strategy group could go back for the last year or so, and reassess penalties based on this criteria, to see how it changes the penalty awarded, and maybe take a call on it.

  11. Neil (@neilosjames)
    9th July 2018, 15:19

    Just watched it a few times from both in-cars and an external camera, and while it wasn’t a malicious ‘bump’… Gasly went in too late, had a little wobble and hit Perez, which knocked him off the track and damaged his car.

    The overtake only happened due to the collision, which was entirely the fault of Gasly, so I agree with the stewards on this one.

  12. Perez is really the last person who should complain about this. He always shoves people off.

    It was even more ridiculous to hear Alonso ranting about Magnussen. How many years has he been racing and he still doesn’t understand that the driver ahead has the rights to racing line? Either make the move stick or get back in line.

Comments are closed.