In the round-up: AlphaTauri admit they were too quick to put their drivers onto slick tyres as the track dried in the Singapore Grand Prix.
In brief
Gasly puzzled by team’s “massive risk”
Pierre Gasly said he was “very disappointed” with his tenth place finish in the Singapore Grand Prix, saying his team threw away a chance to score more points by pitting early for slicks on the drying track.
“We took a massive risk boxing early and lost some positions,” he said. “I don’t fully understand why we made this decision, so we’ll need to review everything and learn from this mistake. For sure we left a lot of points on the table today, so it hurts quite a bit.”
His team mate Yuki Tsunoda crashed out after switching to slicks, causing a Safety Car period in which several of Gasly’s rivals were able to jump ahead of him by making their pit stops while the race was neutralised.
“After all of the hard work put in by the team and drivers over the weekend, we have failed to maximise the opportunity to score good points with both cars tonight,” said technical director Jody Egginton. “This is due to our engineering team committing too early to the switch to dry tyres.
“This has cost track position for both drivers, with Yuki also unfortunately sliding off track soon after. This meant we have only got one car to the flag and come away with far less points than we should have.”
Albon frustrated after crash
Alexander Albon’s return to action in the Singapore Grand Prix ended early when he crashed out. He said it was a “confusing” incident as he did “nothing different from the previous lap.”
“However I just locked up on the front-left with the wet making it difficult to predict the brakes,” he explained. “Whilst there wasn’t an issue and ultimately it comes down to driver error, the brakes are very tricky in the wet and it’s hard to get them in the right window.”
Ricciardo hails best result of season
There was some cheer for Daniel Ricciardo in Singapore as he ticks down his final races at the end of a disappointing stint at McLaren. He scored his best result of the season with fifth place yesterday.
“I’m very happy,” he said. “I haven’t had a top five all year so I’m very pleased with that.
“I feel like some things fell in our favour today, but I also think we were very patient and mature. It was very tempting to jump on a slick and try to be a hero in the position we were in but I think we were just sensible,…
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