Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri, Istanbul Park, 2020

Unhappy Gasly calls AlphaTauri’s performance “embarrassing”

2020 Turkish Grand Prix

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An unhappy Pierre Gasly told his team they had been ‘sleeping since Saturday’ after finishing 13th in the Turkish Grand Prix.

Gasly was relegated to the back of the grid following confusion over a pre-race engine change.

AlphaTauri originally advised the stewards they were fitting a new power unit to Gasly’s car, which would have been his fourth of the season, and meant an automatic penalty. They then decided to re-fit the original engine, but as the stewards could not verify what work had been done, his penalty was unchanged.

Having been relegated to 19th place on the grid, Gasly spent almost the entire race outside of the top 10. He finished behind team mate Daniil Kvyat, both out of the points.

The team lost significant ground to Ferrari in the contest for sixth place in the constructors championship. Their rivals scored 27 points, and now lie 41 ahead of them with three races remaining.

After crossing the finishing line, Gasly told his team he’d had a “fucking shit race” and was “very disappointed” with the “whole weekend”.

“I don’t think Friday was so bad,” his engineer replied. “Nobody cares about Friday,” answered Gasly. “Nobody cares.

“Now we threw so many points just because we are nowhere, since Saturday we are sleeping.”

Gasly said after the race the team had been unable to make the intermediate and wet weather tyres work.

“The whole weekend was really bad for us,” he said. “We had very poor performance on the wet tyres yesterday, and with today being wet again, we knew we were going to struggle massively.

“It’s a bit embarrassing because if it was all fine in the dry during practice on Friday, it means we were just too slow with the wets and intermediate tyres, we just couldn’t switch them on and struggled in final practice and quali. In addition, we took a penalty today.”

Gasly said the team “need to understand what went wrong and what didn’t work in order to do better, in case we find ourselves in the same conditions.

“We already have some answers but still, we should have done a better job and I’m disappointed. Now it’s done and we should look at the next few races.”

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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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10 comments on “Unhappy Gasly calls AlphaTauri’s performance “embarrassing””

  1. Very uncharacteristically mardy/critical of the team from Gasly, think he’ll be regretting this in a few hours when he’s calmed down.

    1. I don’t know, I didn’t hear the radio or the interviews but I read it as he being angry with how everything went in general, probably including himself as well.

      1. I’m sure that’s the main part of it; Pierre is very devoted to and defensive of the team, normally (not sure where this alleged emotional reputation other people are talking about comes from) so it’s striking that he must have had such a frustrating day that some ill-thought-out stuff came out in his self-criticism.

        He’s normally very clear about motivating the team and people around him even on a bad day so must be having an exceptionally grim one.

        1. It does seem a bit untypical of Gasly this year @hazelsouthwell, @Pedro Andrade. On the other hand, it does show that he was building up a bit of expectation pushing for results.

  2. geoffgroom44 (@)
    15th November 2020, 17:55

    so now we get to understand why team player Albon is preferred to prima donna Gasly,? These kind of comments should not be public.This is team chat and venting after a disappointing race is ‘normal’ for some drivers.

  3. This is his major problem … he’s too emotional.
    Mood swings.

  4. Yikes.

    I get he’s disappointed but this is not the way to handle a bad weekend.

    I remember Magnussen saying similar things about his car a little while back and Steiner was right on the radio reminding him of all the people who were working hard to even allow him to race. You win and lose as a team but it seems Gasly sees his team as folks that work for him some days.

  5. Maybe he is taking up the mantra of Team Leader as Horner had categorized him as and wants to drive the team forward. If Alonso had said this nobody would bat an eyelid. If he can fulfil the role of Team Leader and push the team forward I don’t see an issue with him demanding better performance from the team

    1. he’s not Alonso though

  6. Those comments by Gasly are extremely unprofessional and disrespectful of the diligent and meticulous work required to assemble and maintain a world class racing car. Even if the mechanics and engineers did make a mistake, that doesn’t excuse saying those things, especially in public. There are politer ways of saying the same thing, and better ways of encouraging the comradery necessary for a World Championship winning team. Shouting is a sign of not being in control of a situation. Speaking and talking nicely without swearing shows you are in control and have confidence in yourself and your team. When things go wrong then that’s when your class as professional driver has to shine. Look at Sebastian: he started 11th and finished on the Podium. He pulled a podium from obscurity. Look at Lewis: started 6th and won the race on a wet track with tyres that had no tread. Sergio’s tyres had no tread too, and he finished second. Charles went from 12th to 4th. Lando and Carlos started behind Pierre and finished ahead of him in the points. Most professional drivers don’t get the vehicle they want, they get the vehicle someone who thinks differently has decided is suitable. So it just happened that today Pierre didn’t have the car or the place on the starting grid that he wanted. There’s days when the team have looked at their drivers and wished they were someone better. Pulling a prize winning rabbit from a hat isn’t just a magicians trick, it is what makes champions. There are days when you let yourself and the team down, there’s days when others let you down, and there are days when you are the one who uses pulls reward from what looks like a bad hand of cards. Today was an opportunity for Pierre to have earned points from a place where it seemed impossible. As the saying goes, “You win as a team and you loose as a team”. A lady once told me that if you are going to be quick blaming someone then you should be quick to apologise too.

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