Gasly gets over Australian GP crash, happy with pace

The 2020 Italian Grand Prix winner was on course to bag fifth position but at the third standing start of the race, after a red flag initiated by Kevin Magnussen’s crash that led to a spectator being injured, Gasly was forced into avoiding action.

As the pack concertinaed into Turn 1, he locked up and ran over the grass to miss clipping the rear of Fernando Alonso, although the Aston Martin driver was then tagged by Carlos Sainz.

Gasly rejoined the track alongside Ocon but kept drifting towards the outside, clipping his team-mate’s tyre to send both cars into the wall for a double retirement.

A distraught Gasly only mustered one answer in the immediate post-race print media pen as he watched the race end behind a safety car: “I’m just so disappointed to say anything for now just looking at these guys finishing the race.”

But team boss Szafnauer says Gasly, who swiftly sought Ocon to apologise, soon made peace with his role in the shunt – for which he escaped a penalty, unlike Sainz. Instead, he was buoyed by his race pace.

Szafnauer said: “Pierre said, ‘I wish I hadn’t gone off and then when I came back [on track], I couldn’t accelerate’.

“So, although he wasn’t happy because he was so close to a fifth place, he was more pleased with the fact that he could race genuinely up at that level. It was almost like this race is behind him and our pace is good.”

While the non-score drops Alpine to sixth in the constructors’ table, it has ambitious plans to out-develop all teams to reclaim fourth, while also closing the points deficit over 2022 to Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes.

“We have 20 races left, let’s bring the upgrades,” added Szafnauer. “If we can have the same pace and race among the top five cars… this year, if you’re racing for fourth, you’re racing for second. It’s that close.

“[Pierre] wasn’t angry. He wasn’t upset. He was more positive that the pace was there.”

He continued: “We were on for scoring some good points and a well-deserved fifth place for Pierre on merit and good pace. When we told him to push, he tried to keep up with Sainz, he was able to.

“He wasn’t quite as quick as Sainz, but not far off. Then at the end, we told him to push to make sure he stayed ahead of [Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll, who finished fourth] and that he could do.

“The pace was really good here.”