Brendon Hartley, Toro Rosso, Suzuka, 2018

Gasly: ‘The crowd cheered us more than Vettel’

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In the round-up: Pierre Gasly describes how he was overwhelmed by the support for Honda-powered Toro Rosso at Suzuka.

What they say

Gasly admitted he was disappointed he couldn’t reward the home fans with a points finish.

It was really special. When the crowd cheers you more than Sebastian Vettel it feels quite unique. It was really a special feeling on the grid and a lot of people with Toro Rosso caps, Toro Rosso T-shirts. It was a really special weekend since we arrived on Tuesday, you feel all the support from the people.

That’s why it was in a way really important to make everything right and I feel at the moment disappointed for the end result because I don’t think we did the best job possible. yesterday was fantastic but today we should have done better. I’m disappointed for all the support we received since the beginning of the weekend and the beginning of the year,

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

And yesterday’s most surprised reader is:

I’m absolutely gobsmacked!

I’d not realised Alonso was only three points behind Hulkenberg, Perez and Magnussen. Let alone ahead of all those other far superior cars. What an achievement in that awful car.

Ferrari, hand him a blank cheque and beg! Unbelievable, achievement of the season.
Roth Man (@Rdotquestionmark)

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On this day in F1

  • 25 years ago today Olivier Panis clinched the F3000 title despite crashing out on the second lap of the season finale at Nogaro

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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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51 comments on “Gasly: ‘The crowd cheered us more than Vettel’”

  1. That Senna win is still the biggest achievement my country has ever made in F1. Sorry Tiago Monteiro

    1. I thought you said you are Portuguese… ;)

      1. Wait a minute… I think I might have misunderstood you… Apologies…

    2. I thought Tiago’s podium was equally special. He was the only person on the podium that really savoured every moment of it.

      1. That’s true. Just an hyperbole to express the lack of history in the sport

    3. Don’t be so hard on yourself @johnmilk, your 14th and 15th century navigators were quite special. :)

      1. indeed @geemac I guess we are better at endurance racing

  2. Note to Pierre: Crowd wasn’t cheering for you as much as they were cheering for Alonso’s former ‘F2 engine’ supplier. ;-)

    1. They were cheering the fact that the engine has graduated from a F2 engine to one that belongs in F1 :)

      1. @jimmi-cynic @jaymenon10 – more likely, given prior experience, it was like “Yay, it’s still running” (“わーい、それはまだ実行している”) each time a TR came around ;-)

      2. @jaymenon10: Yeah…that is something to cheer about

  3. CoTD is absolutely spot on.

    If Fernando somehow manages to finish in 7th place in the championship, he has to win Driver of the Season!

    1. Not just this season, many many seasons…

    2. But he won’t, most of his points are from early in the season, he capitalized all opportunities he had in the beginning, red bull and Hass dnfd allot in the early part of the season, and back then McLaren were still a little competitive. Right now he doesn’t stand a chance all he can achieve is one or to points at max, and new force India and Sauber is way more competitive then they were in the beginning of the season, so I think it’s gonna be Perez or Ocon for that title.

      1. “so I think it’s gonna be Perez or Ocon for that title”

        Maybe, but those two have tangled before and there has to be a lot of animosity on Ocon’s side.
        I’d never count Alonso out – he may not have the best car but he finds ways to out fox his opponents.
        Having said that, it will be very difficult but if he achieves it he would definitely be a favorite for driver of the year.
        A great way to leave F1.

        1. I agree. Would be a great feat to see him finish best of the rest in a car that’s probably been the 9th best all season.

          I can’t see him doing it though… Especially with the drunk tyre selection guy at Mclaren

  4. On W Series: F1 is not racist nor mysoginistic. It is just the ultimate expression of fortune: luck, resources and abilities gathered around a single person at a given time.
    I’m quite sure that F1 management would love to find competitive Chinese, Japanese, American or Russian driver.
    None of those countries were able to present this driver and none can be deem a underprivileged country or a discriminaterd group.
    The same goes to non white male drivers. F1 would love to find one or two capable female drivers. I’m sure those girls are around there. But who is to say that they are better than Perez, Ocon, Hulk. I mean, is it that much of a sin if F1 did not forcefully put a woman into a F1 car just to see her finish 10th or below.
    And yes she would finish 10th or below. Leclerc is deemed almost a genius because he got some 7th, 8th places. Where is this girl that could be this good and not found out yet. It took 20-30 years for F1 to find its male geniuses.
    A career in F1, let alone a succesful one, is just plain difficult. Since 1950 some billion people lived in this planet. A few dozen won races in F1. Champions were even fewer.
    At most, give the girls some push on junior series and let the brightest ones shine buy themselves. Forcing a token girl into the grid would only fuel frustation.

    1. Not sure what you wanted to say there @Maiagus.

      I mean, this initiative is their thought of how to find a female driver and help more female drivers be inspired to get into racing, stay with it and be supported in being able to persue their career to come far enough to where they attract the attention of F1 teams. The idea is not for a series filled with pretty looking girls “racing”.

      Personally I don’t think it is an effective or good way to go to promote women racing – and the lack of other female (ex) racers supportive of this idea points to them not being too enthusiastic about it either – but it will certainly not lead to plonking into a car “just because she is female”. F1 seats are too scarce for any team to even consider that – apart from if that woman comes with a billionaire package attached off course.

  5. I’m not sure how to feel about the W Series announcement. It seems like it could kick off an overdue social shift that would help normalise women in car culture. However, the fact that something as old hat as a gendered series is the mechanism being employed for such a change is cringe worthy.

    If anything, I hope it produces results quickly enough that we can rapidly transition to a natural state of more women in high tiers of motorsport.

    1. I’ll try to guess what will happen:
      – Series has serious difficulties to field a large enough grid
      – Series champion will graduate to intenational F3 (or even F2) but fail to be competitive
      – This for a few years
      – Dwindling grid numbers
      – Series is being cancelled, organisers speak of “timing wasn’t right, glass ceiling still there, maybe think of entire women-only pyramid up until women-only F1”

      I hate to be so negative on this one, but it’s just wrong and Coulthard’s comments are just not correct. He’s talking about a glass ceiling preventing women racing drivers to succeed at the GP3/F3 level due to not enough funding, but invariably it has been lack of results (due to not enough talent) that has halted women progressing to F2 and F1.

      There are not a lot of women in racing, that is a problem. But that means that at F4 and F3 level, currently, there really aren’t enough quality women racing drivers to form a full F3 (nay, “W Series”) grid. So at best this will be a sidestep where girls like Calderon and Floersch could dominate for a year, to then return to mixed series and be in the mid-pack at best. And then the headlines will be “champion driver of W series having a hard time in International F3” or something like it.

      I would LOVE to see a woman in F1 one day. I do not think gender separation is the way to achieve it.

      1. If anything, I hope it produces results quickly enough that we can rapidly transition to a natural state of more women in high tiers of motorsport.

        @bforth – fully agreed. It should just be used to bootstrap the change, and shouldn’t become the status quo.

        the headlines will be “champion driver of W series having a hard time in International F3” or something like it.

        @mattds – very good point, the series could becomes it’s own worst enemy, a safe space for women who can’t hack it in the “real” series.

  6. It would be great to see a truly exceptional talent emerge as winner of the new women’s championship, but I have to wonder if that title and the £380,000 winner’s share will be enough to see her through to a quality ride in F3 or maybe even F2. Beating the ladies in the W Series will certainly be nice for her, but it’s only in those other series that she will truly be able to show her stuff against the well funded future stars. A better prize would be a full season drive with a top flight F2 or F3 team.

    1. @schooner – good point. I think the challenge would be that the W series is being bankrolled by a wealthy individual, and not one of the owners of the other series, or a team owner, or a big sponsor. So, the ability to guarantee a drive with an F3 or an F2 squad would be quite difficult to negotiate, seeing as those seats are filled with F1 aspirants.

      While not as ideal as your suggestion, the W series does provide an equal platform for them to prove themselves visibly, and hopefully that will be enough to attract the attention of teams and sponsors in other formulae.

      I’ve never been a fan of separate championships for women where they can compete equally with men (e.g. chess, shooting), but seeing as how the other attempts to identify and promote a woman driver into F1 have failed (and worse, have probably harmed the perception of women – see Carmen Jorda), I’m open to seeing how this works out.

      I mean, we have fewer women drivers associated with F1 than even a few years ago, don’t we? And women can’t be that bad at driving compared to men, can they? (Man, I’m going to get mugged for that last sentence!)

      1. @schooner, @phylyp – unless this exceptional female driver also attracts financial support it will hardly be enough for an F3 season – F2 currently seems to go at over 2 million and upwards.

        1. @bascb – very fair point. I’d hope that as the winner of such a series, it becomes easier to attract sponsors (simply as the “W series champion”), especially with the bonus of being a woman, and the added marketing benefit it might bring.

          For example, Rexona (Sure in the UK) is a sponsor for Williams, and they make antiperspirants and deodorants. I can’t speak for other countries, but here in India, they use women in their ads (even though they have a line of products aimed at men). So it would be easy to see how a woman driver might appeal to them.

          It needn’t only satisfy gender-specific advertising, but could also be used for watches, apparel, etc.

    2. but I have to wonder if that title and the £380,000 winner’s share will be enough to see her through to a quality ride in F3 or maybe even F2.

      I would imagine not. I remember seeing something a few years ago now (when Maldonado and van der Garde were in GP2) which suggested they were brining budgets of around £1,000,000. The winning driver would still need to top that up with budget from their own personal sponsors.

      1. By now the budget for F2 are 2 million and up. I think the 380000 GPB might be enough for an F3 season though, which would at least get then into the F1 weekend @geemac. But yeah, they would certainly have to attract more sponsors to even have a chance of landing an F2 drive, let alone an F1 chance

  7. Vettel? I was always under the impression that Kimi was the most popular of current F1 drivers in Japan.

    1. @phylyp
      You might be onto something … Maybe he found a way to make a less than impressive fact (as the fans didn’t cheer Vettel that much at all) sound good, at least at first glance.

      Okay, that was rather tongue-in-cheek, I’ll admit.
      But on the other hand, this is a bit of an emerging pattern with Gasly. I’ve been on record as saying that he’s remarkably ineloquent, even in his mother tongue, but that’s just one side of the medal. The other side being that quite a few of his statements can be taken to be Trojan horses, whose primary purpose consists in conveying an underlying message.
      The first time I noticed this was when he said something along the lines of ‘I used to be good friends with Ocon, but that ended when I started beating him’. Ostensibly, he was talking about a lost friendship and the difficulty of maintaining good relationships in such a highly competitive environment. However, quite a few readers couldn’t shake the impression that the real message here was ‘I beat Ocon a lot before we came to F1’ – a claim that may or may not be true and is less likely to be verified than it would be if he hadn’t embedded it in a tale of lost friendship.

      1. nase – agreed. The boy will do well in F1 ;-)

        I gave a few examples above, in response to questions from some asking just what was it that Gasly has said previously. I failed to include the Ocon one, that’s another good example.

    2. He has a strong fan base in Japan, he always said that Japan is one of his favourite tracks and surely did a lot of promotional events when at RBR, I believe it comes from there.

      Kimi as well, but his past year’s form has resulted in a decline in fans, I think it peaked around his time at Lotus

      1. He has a strong fan base in Japan, he always said that Japan is one of his favourite tracks and surely did a lot of promotional events when at RBR, I believe it comes from there.

        Ah, I didn’t know that about Vettel, thanks @johnmilk

  8. I feel that unless the owners of the W Series can continue the winners in an F2 car it seems pointless.

    1. Considering the number of F2 champions who fail to get a seat in F1, I sometimes feel the same about F2…

  9. If anyone thinks this Formula W is about women, and not just about milking an untapped market, they are seriously deluding themselves.

    1. Biggsy are you related to Banksy?

  10. I’m not sure I agree entirely with Jolyon Palmer’s article about too many small penalties.

    Just how exciting would the race have been if Vettel had passed Max and gotten onto the tail of the two Mercedes.

    In most other series a car as far alongside as Vettel’s was would have means that the driver in front had to concede the corner. However in F1 it seems that the driver in front can choose to turn straight across and collide with that car.

    It’s really quite ridiculous – F1 wants a better show and more passing, but they go out of their way to prevent that by allowing drivers to deliberately crash into a car that has clearly gotten into a passing position.

    If they start enforcing meaningful penalties on the sort of incident there was in the Vettel/Max scenario, then two things would happen.

    1) Drivers would be making much stronger attempts to get up alongside (and past) cars
    2) Drivers with a “no one gets past me” attitude (there’s two that come to mind) would be less likely to cause crashes.

    If Liberty actually want the show to improve then start penalising those that think the rules are just a “guideline” that they can ignore because they have the belief that somehow they’re more important than the sport.

    1. @dbradock

      In most other series a car as far alongside as Vettel’s was would have means that the driver in front had to concede the corner. However in F1 it seems that the driver in front can choose to turn straight across and collide with that car.

      Sorry to burst your bubble, but what happened to Vettel had absolutely nothing to do with being the innocent victim of a cynical defensive move by Verstappen. On the contrary, it was a divebomb, a move that only got him anywhere near Verstappen because of deliberate under-braking and taking an awkward late entry to the corner that would’ve forced him to take an even more awkward early exit that would’ve been incompatible with the racing line around that corner.
      There was absolutely nothing wrong with Verstappen’s line, the only issue was Vettel approaching the corner as if he were driving a bumper car. The only way for Verstappen to avoid that collision would’ve required premonition and the willingness to park the car somewhere far off the racing line just because the guy behind him attempted an impossible move.

      1. @nase I could not agree more with your comment.

        @dbradock I could not disagree more with your comment. Sounds like you want racing to be penalized, decided in the stewards’ room, and I think rather than encouraging passing attempts, you would have F1 sterilized to the point where nobody would want to risk making a passing attempt. But I realize your point assumes incorrectly that all one needs do is get ones front alongside another car, even desperately, and that somehow earns him a free pass. What happened to making a pass stick in your world? If racing was as you would want it, I wouldn’t be interested. Any second rate driver can perform a dive bomb at any time and claim corners, with the leader disallowed from defending without penalty? No thanks. Methinks you’re going to have to come to terms with what real racing should be, for if Liberty has their way it is going to get a lot closer in the future. There ideally will be a lot of see-saw battles, with cars alongside each other a lot more, and drivers are going to have to drive their way ahead of other drivers and make passes stick even more than now.

  11. Where can I vote for Joylon Palmer to become a permanent steward?

    1. @coldfly – I’d hope he issues penalties faster than his driving.

      1. @phylyp – I hope he’ll issues as little penalties as he scored points ;)

  12. I agree with Palmer. Please stop micro management by stewards with ridiculous penalties for minor stuff. F1 doesn’t need it.

    I don’t really agree with his analysis that Max should’ve left more room to Vettel. He was just steering into he corner leaving about a car’s width at the apex. But Vettel could never make that corner without hitting Max and Max could never make that corner without steering in.

    1. @anunaki
      Vettel was making the corner until the contact and not in dirty air any more, so my guess is that he would’ve managed the corner just fine. Max gave him half a car width (except if you count the curbstones as track surface)
      For Max: The track seemed 6 m wide at the point of first contact, so he would have been able to leave enough space, but he would’ve lost the position, and Max chooses death over defeat in such instances even with a teammate…
      The ridiculous penalty was the 5s penalty for regaining the track, trying to bang Raikonen into Tokio and keeping on to the position. He should’ve gotten the instruction to let Kimi past immediately and have the 5s penalty for the caused car damage, or a stop&go in the next few laps.

      1. @George ”The ridiculous penalty was the 5s penalty for regaining the track, trying to bang Raikonen into Tokio and keeping on to the position. He should’ve gotten the instruction to let Kimi past immediately and have the 5s penalty for the caused car damage, or a stop&go in the next few laps.”
        – I couldn’t agree more with you.

      2. So following your logic everyone that just pushes himself alongside but not in front of someone into the apex of a corner should get a free pass from the car in front. My opinion is that you have to make the overtake stick by being in front or you need to back out of the move.

        But probably the main logic is: is one of the cars Max: his fault anyhow

        And about the incident Kimi: even Kimi said afterwards when he saw the videos that he could have given Max a little more room. Not that it was his fault, it was Max that made the mistake. But the stewards shouldn’t give these micro management penalties imho. And Palmer thinks the same about (and it seemed so did Lewis after seeing it ons the screen after the race).

        1. Lol yeah I got a chuckle out of ‘he was making the corner until the contact.’

  13. I doubt Renault’s slump in performance is solely down to the Engine/PU-side. There’s got to be more to it than merely engine power.
    – I agree with the COTD.
    – What’s so great about getting more support than Vettel specifically? What about Hamilton, Alonso, or Raikkonen?
    – I can agree with Palmer in principle concerning the number of penalties.

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