Pierre Gasly, Toro Rosso, Circuit of the Americas, 2018

Gasly rejects Hartley’s claim his car was undamaged in Mexico

2018 Mexican Grand Prix

Posted on

| Written by and

Pierre Gasly has rejected Brendon Hartley’s claim his team mate’s car was not damaged at the start of the United States Grand Prix.

Hartley disputed Gasly and team principal Franz Tost’s references to the damage Gasly’s car suffered on the first lap of the race. But Gasly described how it damaged in two separate incidents.

“[On] lap one when I saw the crash with Stroll and Alonso I had to avoid it, completely cut the track in turn four. So I had a pretty big jump there was a big hole there so there was the first impact there.

“And then after going on the back straight when Charles [Leclerc] spun with Grosjean there was, it looked like, a big piece of carbon that everyone avoided in front of me and I took it straight under the floor.

“After that basically the balance was a lot more oversteery and it was difficult. It impacted the tyre degradation, the balance, all these things and the overall performance of the race.”

Gasly finished 13th, four places behind Harley. Tost told media on Friday Hartley needs to put up a better showing against Gasly to keep his seat at the team for the 2019 F1 season.

In response to a question from RaceFans, Gasly said he has tried to maintain an amicable relationship with Hartley.

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

“I always try to be friends with my team mate,” he said. “Sometimes some of them like it, some others try not to be friends.

“I think on my side at the end of the day I’ve been always nice with Brendon. He’s under a lot of pressure so at the moment he seems to look at things in a bit different way than at the beginning of the season.

“But I don’t really pay attention to that I just focus on my job. At the end of the day it’s true that it’s always a big fight between team mates but you need to know how to work together because that’s the most important thing for the team and for both of us.”

Asked by RaceFans whether he’d spoken to Hartley about the dispute over the last race, Gasly said: “At the moment he says a lot of things so I don’t think I need to comment [on] anything.”

Hartley said recent developments at the team have made him “realise I also have to defend myself a little bit.

“During the season there’s lots of things that I don’t always mention. I just felt like maybe I needed to stand up for myself sometimes and fight for my cause which I’m doing. I know I’ve done a really good job the last races and events with the team all year.”

@Josh5Holland contributed to this article

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

2018 F1 season

Browse all 2018 F1 season articles

7 comments on “Gasly rejects Hartley’s claim his car was undamaged in Mexico”

  1. It can’t be easy if your teammate gets handed a huge promotion but you get told “we need to look at the needs of the business, Brendon”.
    I’m sure Brendon’ll pick up a seat in another series soon enough, he’s a double World Champion after all.

  2. Why is the red bull promotion/drop carousel always so annoyingly messy! To me this makes clear Harley doesn’t have a (near) future with them, until they are in need of him.

    I mean, contrast with Vandoorne: two years where he’s out-qualified, the team tell him there’s no place for him in their F1 team anymore, but they at least still keep up the mantra they support him, and wish him well. Not helping his career all that much, but come on, be decent about it at least, is that so hard? Well, if you are a blow-hard like dr. Marko, I guess it is. Annoying, as it makes me like and enjoy the whole operation just that little bit less.

    1. And then they wonder where all the talent is gone, innit :)

  3. Starting to get really annoyed at Hartley. I’m not going to miss him much.

  4. I know I’ve done a really good job the last races and events with the team all year.

    As a professional driver one needs to be self-critical because you should be the best judge of your abilities, but I suspect there’s a lack of realism in one’s self-critique here.
    Unfortunately doing “a really good job” isn’t good enough in F1, you need to do an excellent job, especially if one’s name is at the bottom of the season’s statistic’s table, nothing else is good enough.

  5. Hartley is going down the wrong route, and its what I’ve seen several drivers do, who are about to lose their drive. The public does not employ you, instead of winning favours with the public, try and win favours with your employers. Trying to get journalists to promote you, is plain futile

    1. Brendon has been defending the team all season, he has a contract to drive for next year and how the team are happy with his performance. Then Marko comes out in the media and says Brendan needs to start beating his teammate to drive next year. Brendan defends himself and mentions where he’s beaten Gasly and then Tost comes out to defend Marko by saying Brendan hasn’t scored enough points at the end of the day. A novel idea would be to actually talk to your driver in private about where things are than doing it all through the media and lying to them in private. Unfortunately Hartleys reaction is probably going to sour somewhat the good relationship he and Gasly had. They’re only stringing Hartley along now in case Albon isn’t released by Nissan as they have no other options – just a terrible place to work.

Comments are closed.