Pierre Gasly expects the FIA to take action to prevent oil being dropped on the starting grid before races, as happened at last weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix.
The Alpine driver claimed his best starting position of the season with fourth place at the new Las Vegas Strip Circuit. However he was left at a disadvantage as oil was dropped on his starting position by one of the classic cars being used to escort the drivers, in this case Lewis Hamilton.
Although marshals worked to clean up and reduce the effects of the spillage before the race began, Gasly believes he was still left at an unfair disadvantage.
“It wasn’t nice,” he said. “Especially lining up on the best spot of the year for us.”
He raised the matter with the sport’s governing body. “I’ve discussed it already with the FIA,” he said. “I’m sure we’ll change a few things because it doesn’t feel really fair that some guys got to start on oil and some others have clear Tarmac. But I’m sure they’ll fix it.”
The problem wasn’t the first of its kind, though the spillage in Las Vegas was particularly large. “It’s not the first time we’ve seen these historic cars dropping oil,” acknowledged George Russell, who started alongside Gasly.
“It was pretty shocking to see how bad it was but they did a good job of the clear-up before the race.”
Some drivers said the oil on the rack contributed towards the collisions which happened at turn one at the start of the race. McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said that means the FIA need to look into it.
“This seems like an obvious point – if there’s a Formula 1 race, then you wouldn’t like to drop oil on-track one-and-a-half hours before the race.
“I think there’s many things that will populate the agenda of F1 and the FIA to improve the safety conditions.”
If the oil on the track did contribute to the first corner crash “then it becomes a proper safety issue” and “should be definitely not happening, or be fixed as a matter of priority,” Stella concluded.
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2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix
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